Two behind-the-scenes details explain most "that number looks off" moments: views are deduplicated, and most stats are finalised overnight.
Deduplication
A single reader refreshing or revisiting the same page repeatedly within a 30-minute window counts as one view, tracked per browser. This keeps view counts meaningful rather than inflated by refreshes. It also means your numbers will look lower than raw page-load counts if you compare them against server logs.
When stats update
Most stats are finalised by nightly rollups rather than updating instantly through the day. Today's and yesterday's numbers are the exception: those are computed live on demand, with a short cache, so very recent activity shows up without waiting for the overnight rollup.