The Spread

Was the forecast right for Washington on Sun Aug 30?

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

10 days out, 4 models put Washington's Sun Aug 30 high anywhere from 24° to 35°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 32°. The day verified at 32° against the DCA observations, with 4.6 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

UKMO landed closest, off by 0.1°. GFS ran 3° hot.

10 days out the models said 24–35; it hit 32. UKMO led (off 0.1°C); GFS ran 3°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 Sun Aug 30 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
10d · 2026-08-20 29° 24° 31° 35° 24–35°
9d · 2026-08-21 27° 29° 31° 32° 27–32°
8d · 2026-08-22 26° 25° 29° 27° 31° 25–31°
7d · 2026-08-23 30° 26° 33° 32° 33° 26–33°
6d · 2026-08-24 30° 32° 31° 31° 35° 33° 30–35°
5d · 2026-08-25 31° 29° 32° 30° 33° 32° 32° 29–33°
4d · 2026-08-26 31° 30° 32° 33° 33° 31° 33° 30–33°
3d · 2026-08-27 31° 32° 31° 33° 34° 32° 32° 31–34°
2d · 2026-08-28 31° 32° 32° 33° 34° 33° 31° 31–34°
1d · 2026-08-29 31° 33° 33° 32° 34° 32° 31° 31–34°
0d · 2026-08-30 31° 32° 33° 32° 35° 32° 32° 31–35°
actual 32°

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.