Amit Dave’s Forecast Data January 5, 2011

The following year 2010 Year Chart shows Amit Dave’s forecast data for the year 2010 overlaid on my own data chart. I contacted him earlier about displaying this chart on the EarthWaves board and he said that it would be okay.

The circles show the times and longitudes of powerful earthquakes in the 6 to 9.9 magnitude range. Circle size increases with magnitude. The red triangles show when an earthquake produced fatalities.

One of the reasons these chart generation computer programs were created is to make it possible for forecasters around the world to display their data on the same chart, making it easier to compare them. Since Amit Dave’s forecast data do not contain any longitude information a thin yellow colored line was used to show when the days are when he was expecting that earthquakes might occur. If he had some longitude information then his data would probably appear as something like a square at a particular location on the chart instead of a time line.

As this is an experimental effort the lines were manually drawn on the chart rather than by the actual chart generation program. So, they are not high accuracy data but are mainly for demonstration purposes. The computer program can be easily modified so that it will draw them exactly where they should be.

I am waiting to see if two other forecasters that I contacted would like their data also displayed on the chart.

Regarding Amit Dave’s actual data,

His original data largely pointed to possible approaching earthquakes in the 6.8 to 7.2 magnitude range. So, the same thickness line was used for all of the data. If he had a wider range of magnitudes such as 6.0 to 9.0 then I probably would have drawn the higher magnitude lines with a wider line. The computer program could do that quite easily.

Looking at the data, there are so many lines I am not sure how people would be able to use the data to determine exactly when an earthquake could be about to occur. However, when the chart generation program is run the chart can be easily expanded vertically. And it is easier to then see if the lines are matching the times when major earthquakes occurred.

In any case, the program at least provides researchers with a mechanism for easily displaying and comparing their data. They can then add refinements to it so that their own data are easier to interpret and more useful to government officials etc. who are trying to forecast earthquakes.

http://www.Freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/images/2010-ad.png