Hi Canie,

It can take me as much as 2 full days to generate a single forecast. So I presently do that only on rare occasions. I can say that during the past few weeks there has been a considerable amount of warning signal activity. But I don’t see where the geomagnetic storm indicators have shown much activity.

I have found that for some unknown reason, large numbers of warning signals like that are often associated with Indonesia area seismic activity. Fortunately so far none of the signals has been very strong.

This forecasting effort is presently moving away from individual predictions and towards the generation of global “Earthquake Profiles” which can show where earthquake “hot spots” might exist around the world. Earthquake forecasters in different country can then evaluate those data and check to see if there are other signs of approaching seismic activity in any of the hot spot areas.

As I have been saying, I have been going back and checking past warning signal data. And the results are spectacular. On May 27, 1998 I posted a note to the sci.geo.earthquakes Newsgroup advising people to watch for seismic activity in either Iran or Afghanistan to occur by May 30, 1998. And on May 30, 1998 the following earthquake reportedly claimed some 5000 lives.

1998/05/30 06:22:00 37.21N 69.93E 33 6.9 Afghanistan
(NEIS data)

Feeding the program my data for the original warning signals which were detected on May 26, it pointed to the following earthquakes as its two top choices after comparing those data with about 20,000 past earthquakes:

1997/04/08 15:23:44 18.63N 106.40W 33.0 5.6
1994/06/10 03:00:44 38.56N 70.60E 33.0 5.4

The fact that that second earthquake appeared means that those are truly extraordinary data. Had the computer program existed back in 1998 then that earthquake might have been accurately forecast. And perhaps some of those people might still be alive. Even back then I felt that that the expected earthquake could be an aftershock for the following one:

1998/02/04 14:33:00 37.07N 70.07E 33 6.1 Afghanistan

I am starting to see data of that quality appear quite often now.

My recent Newsgroup note was intended as a progress report for review by government earthquake forecasters around the world. Additionally, a giant insurance group was recently sent information regarding my computer program. Progress is being made.

Ouch! You used the “C” word, calculus. Good luck.