The Spread

Was the forecast right for Washington on Wed Aug 26?

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

6 days out, 6 models put Washington's Wed Aug 26 high anywhere from 28° to 31°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 30°. The day verified at 30° against the DCA observations — cloudy.

ICON landed closest, off by 0.1°. GFS ran 2° hot.

6 days out the models said 28–31; it hit 30. ICON led (off 0.1°C); GFS ran 2°C hot.
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 Wed Aug 26 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
6d · 2026-08-20 29° 29° 28° 29° 31° 29° 28–31°
5d · 2026-08-21 29° 29° 27° 31° 30° 34° 33° 27–34°
4d · 2026-08-22 29° 30° 30° 31° 32° 31° 28° 28–32°
3d · 2026-08-23 30° 30° 30° 30° 32° 31° 29° 29–32°
2d · 2026-08-24 30° 29° 31° 32° 31° 31° 29° 29–32°
1d · 2026-08-25 30° 30° 32° 30° 32° 31° 30° 30–32°
0d · 2026-08-26 29° 30° 31° 30° 32° 30° 30° 29–32°
actual 30°

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.