What is time series data and how is it different from regular tabular data?

Time series data is ordered by time and depends on temporal relationships, unlike tabular data where rows are independent.

Time series data consists of observations recorded sequentially over time, where ordering matters and past values influence future values. Unlike standard tabular ML datasets where samples are assumed independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.), time series violates this assumption. Temporal dependencies, trends, and seasonality are core characteristics that must be modeled explicitly.