1. A computer-implemented method for forecasting characteristics of a target item comprising: generating, by one or more processors, forecast data for a target item based on historical data related to the target item, the forecast data representing a forecast for characteristics of the target item; analyzing, by the one or more processors, a subset of the historical data within an observation window to determine whether the forecast data should be updated with new forecast data; generating, by the one or more processors, the new forecast data for the target item responsive to a determination that the forecast data should be updated with the new forecast data; determining a longest number of consecutive time intervals in the historical data that have zero value data points; and configuring a length of the observation window to be at least one time interval longer than the longest number of consecutive time intervals in the historical data having zero value data points.