Nowcast

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A weather forecast predicting the weather for a very short upcoming period, usually only a few hours.

    "A low-probability nowcast was essentially a “No Forecast" , but issued with less confidence."

  2. 2
    An estimate made by nowcasting.

    "The indices are nowcasted at a very low level, meaning thousands of nowcasts. Attention has been focuesed on the nowcasts that fail validation checks."

Verb
  1. 1
    To predict the weather for a very short upcoming period (usually a few hours).

    "If the nowcasted or forecasted rainfall depth is greater than the FFG, then flooding in the basin is considered likely."

  2. 2
    To estimate what is currently happening based on knowledge of how data is biased.

    "The indices are nowcasted at a very low level, meaning thousands of nowcasts. Attention has been focuesed on the nowcasts that fail validation checks."

Example

More examples

"If the nowcasted or forecasted rainfall depth is greater than the FFG, then flooding in the basin is considered likely."

Etymology

Blend of now + forecast.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.