The US government has reopened following its longest-ever shutdown, setting the stage for the eventual release of its gold-standard data, which is crucial in analyzing the health and trajectory of the nation’s economy.

Data nerds (and government officials, and Federal Reserve policymakers, and business owners, and, well, everyone else for that matter), rejoice!

“It’s been like flying in fog without any instrumentation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

However, expect some choppiness when the air starts to clear.

The very nature of the 43-day shutdown has created an unprecedented situation: Some datapoints were not gathered when they typically should have been, increasing the potential for big holes in what’s expected to be already messy data.

What major economic reports are outstanding?

Since the government was dark for the entirety of October and the first dozen days of November, several reports that included data collected in September and scheduled to be released in the ensuing weeks were not delivered (with the exception of the Consumer Price Index), nor was data collected for October (we’ll get to that here shortly).

The Frances Perkins Department of Labor building on August 4, in Washington, DC. Due to the shutdown, some vital reports were not released on schedule. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/File

One of the first reports expected to be released could be the September jobs report, which was due October 3.

“I think it’s sitting on the shelf and just needs to be released,” Zandi said. “Maybe dust [the report] off and produce a press release; but I think it should be ready to go.”

It’s possible that the September jobs re