The Spread

Was the forecast right for Washington on Tue Aug 25?

Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the DCA observations

5 days out, 7 models put Washington's Tue Aug 25 high anywhere from 79° to 86°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 83°. The day verified at 85° against the DCA observations — cloudy.

GEM landed closest, off by 0.9°. UKMO ran 2° cold.

5 days out the models said 79–86; it hit 85. GEM led (off 0.9°F); UKMO ran 2°F cold.
The shareable card for this receipt — what this page looks like pasted into a thread.

What every model said, at every lead

Daily-high calls for Tue Aug 25 as each model's runs approached it — the last archived run per day. NBM and The Spread's own blend are consensus products and stay out of these ranges and rankings; the Washington scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
5d · 2026-08-20 81° 80° 79° 82° 86° 81° 82° 79–86°
4d · 2026-08-21 81° 82° 80° 83° 85° 82° 82° 80–85°
3d · 2026-08-22 82° 82° 82° 84° 86° 83° 82° 82–86°
2d · 2026-08-23 83° 83° 82° 85° 86° 84° 83° 82–86°
1d · 2026-08-24 83° 82° 83° 84° 86° 82° 83° 82–86°
0d · 2026-08-25 83° 83° 84° 84° 86° 83° 83° 83–86°
actual 85°

Read it honestly

This is one date, not a league table. A model can win a day it deserved to lose; rankings only mean something over a window. For that, see which model has been most accurate in Washington — or every city The Spread scores.

Forecasts are what each model's archived runs said at the time, captured at The Spread's sweep times — never reconstructed after the fact. Truth is the DCA observations. Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.