Nowcasting
Official recession dating arrives months late; quarterly GDP arrives weeks late and gets revised for years. Nowcasting estimates the current state of the economy from the data that exists *now* — weekly claims, monthly production, daily credit spreads — rather than waiting for the official releases.
How it differs from forecasting
A forecast asks what the economy will do; a nowcast asks what it's doing right now. The distinction matters practically: a nowcast-based signal (Sahm rule, Chauvet–Piger probabilities) timestamps onset within weeks; a forecast-based signal (yield curve) warns months ahead. Confusing them — treating a nowcast as a prediction — is the most common recession-watching error.
On this monitor
The panel separates the two: forecast signals drive the composite score, nowcast signals confirm or veto whether a recession may already be underway. The Chauvet–Piger probability — our nowcast-block recession estimate — is computed on the same data the NBER weighs, but published monthly rather than after the fact.