Hindcasting

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The process of using historical data to simulate and predict past events for analysis and verification purposes; the act of recreating previous conditions to validate models or methods; performing retrospective forecasting to assess the accuracy of predictive systems
2. Employing prior recorded information to run simulations that replicate historic scenarios; reconstructing earlier outcomes to test the reliability of analytical tools; conducting backward-looking predictions to compare with actual historical results
3. Utilizing archival records to generate hypothetical past states for evaluating forecasts; recreating past conditions to check the precision of computational models; carrying out posterior estimations to confirm the validity of predictive approaches

Etymology: "Hindcast" is a compound built on "forecast," and it runs the calculation the other way. "Fore-" means "before," and "cast" in the older sense of forecasting meant reckoning or calculating, so a forecast is a reckoning made ahead of time. "Hind" comes from the same family as "behind" and means "back" or "rear," so a hindcast is a reckoning made backward. The practical logic is in the pairing. A model that predicts the future can be run on a past period whose outcome is already known, and the gap between its output and the recorded result shows how reliable it is. The term therefore describes a test, not a prophecy: the forecaster pretends to stand in an earlier year and checks the method against what actually happened.

Synonyms: retrospective prediction, historical modeling, backcasting, forecasting past events