diff --git a/pkg/metricstore/buffer.go b/pkg/metricstore/buffer.go
index 8530f893..72467f6c 100644
--- a/pkg/metricstore/buffer.go
+++ b/pkg/metricstore/buffer.go
@@ -146,7 +146,9 @@ var (
 
 	// ErrDataDoesNotAlign indicates that aggregated data from child scopes
 	// does not align with the parent scope's expected timestamps/intervals.
-	ErrDataDoesNotAlign error = errors.New("[METRICSTORE]> data from lower granularities does not align")
+	ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingFront    error = errors.New("[METRICSTORE]> data from lower granularities does not align (missing data prior to start of the buffers)")
+	ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingBack     error = errors.New("[METRICSTORE]> data from lower granularities does not align (missing data after the end of the buffers)")
+	ErrDataDoesNotAlignDataLenMismatch error = errors.New("[METRICSTORE]> data from lower granularities does not align (collected data length is different than expected data length)")
 )
 
 // buffer stores time-series data for a single metric at a specific hierarchical level.
diff --git a/pkg/metricstore/metricstore.go b/pkg/metricstore/metricstore.go
index e8bd6812..9ba69c55 100644
--- a/pkg/metricstore/metricstore.go
+++ b/pkg/metricstore/metricstore.go
@@ -712,16 +712,16 @@ func (m *MemoryStore) Read(selector util.Selector, metric string, from, to, reso
 		} else if from != cfrom || to != cto || len(data) != len(cdata) {
 			missingfront, missingback := int((from-cfrom)/minfo.Frequency), int((to-cto)/minfo.Frequency)
 			if missingfront != 0 {
-				return ErrDataDoesNotAlign
+				return ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingFront
 			}
 
 			newlen := len(cdata) - missingback
 			if newlen < 1 {
-				return ErrDataDoesNotAlign
+				return ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingBack
 			}
 			cdata = cdata[0:newlen]
 			if len(cdata) != len(data) {
-				return ErrDataDoesNotAlign
+				return ErrDataDoesNotAlignDataLenMismatch
 			}
 
 			from, to = cfrom, cto
diff --git a/pkg/metricstore/stats.go b/pkg/metricstore/stats.go
index 2feec2ff..f9db2d43 100644
--- a/pkg/metricstore/stats.go
+++ b/pkg/metricstore/stats.go
@@ -91,8 +91,10 @@ func (m *MemoryStore) Stats(selector util.Selector, metric string, from, to int6
 
 		if n == 0 {
 			from, to = cfrom, cto
-		} else if from != cfrom || to != cto {
-			return ErrDataDoesNotAlign
+		} else if from != cfrom {
+			return ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingFront
+		} else if to != cto {
+			return ErrDataDoesNotAlignMissingBack
 		}
 
 		samples += stats.Samples