Posted by EQF September 5, 2010

Hi Amit Dave,

This posting is a technical suggestion for you to consider.

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION

As I have said in the past, it has been my experience that if people want other people to see that their forecasting program is working and also see that they should be using their forecast data then they need to make the forecast data as easy to understand and as accessible as possible.

I myself am trying to help people around the world determine when earthquakes might be headed their way so that they can prepare for them. And so I am generating my own forecast data and making it available to people. And I am also constantly talking with other forecasters to see if I can help them with their own methodology work better and to also see if they have any helpful forecasting data that I can compare with my own.

It can be difficult for people to quickly evaluate forecasts that simply state that there will a powerful earthquake on this day or that. It takes too long to examine the data. And it is difficult to tell how well the method might be working. So, here is a suggestion for you to consider as that is how your own forecast data are being presented. I can help you with this if you like. But if you have an engineering background as your Web site says then you should probably not need any assistance.

SUGGESTION

You could get hold of a Spreadsheet computer program such as Excel. A high quality one can be obtained for free from OpenOffice.org at any time.

Store the days of the year such as 2010/09/05 in the first column of the spreadsheet.

Store your forecast days in the expected day entry for the second column using the expected magnitude. Then store the magnitude values for powerful earthquakes such as 7.0 and higher in the third column.

Use columns two and three to create a Chart showing the days when you expect high magnitude earthquakes versus when the earthquakes actually occurred. The first column can be used for the horizontal line axis.

Store the chart at the top of your Web site. And you can place copies of it on these EarthWaves pages as well. I can give you the html code for both of those things if you like.

That type of chart would provide people with some idea regarding the accuracy of your forecasts and to what degree people should trust and make use of your forecast data.

Charts like that can be easier to evaluate than lists of days and magnitudes.

Best Regards and Good Luck with your forecasting method.

These are personal opinions.