Don, Do you have friends at the Montana Bureau of Mines who call
you when there is an earthquake or does that gut of yours have an
internal telephone (kind of reminds me of a Star Trek NG episode
where Data opens up his mid section to reveal a telephone in a
dream - apparently some alien was trying to communicate).
Anyway, all joking aside the prediction Don posted last night
does raise some interesting questions for those of us charged
with evaluating such. You see, an earthquake matching all the
parameters of Don's prediction (but 1.5 days out of his time
window) occurred yesterday afternoon, but was not made public
by MBMG until about an hour ago. Don's prediction was made after
the event but before he should have had knowledge of the existence
of the earthquake. Since I have no reason to believe that Don
has access to unpublished earthquake data, I have to accept this
as a legitimate "prediction" even though it was posted after the
event occurred. I would appreciate some thoughts from others on
this - Michael, Roger, Roger?? How should we deal with predictions
which are made after an event but before public knowledge of that
event is available?

Anyway last night Don's gut was acting up again and he made
the following prediction:

McCall, Idaho Earthquake Forecast
Posted by Don In Hollister on August 01, 2001 at 00:22:25:

Magnitude: 2.8-4.5Ml
From: 08/02/2001 - To: 08/07/2001
Location: McCall, Idaho
Lat: 45.0N - Long: 115.9W - Range: 80Km

Hi All. It's late at night, or early in the morning and as I have nothing
better to do I thought I would try another area.

A 2.8 to 4.5Ml at 45.0N/155.9W (SIC) on 08/04/2001 (my birthday) and before
you ask, don't ask and Petra you keep your fingers off the keyboard. This
is about 15 miles ESE of McCall, Idaho. The window opens on 08/02/2001 and
closes on 08/07/2001. The radius is 80Km. Take Care...Don in creepy town

MBMG is reporting as of 2:00 p.m. PST today the following earthquake:

01/07/31 15:16:06 44.60N 115.21W 10.0 2.8 D 45 km NW of Stanley, ID

This event occurred about 1.5 days earlier than the time window
but was within the magnitude range and occurred 71 km from the
predicted site. If the prediction is allowed it stands as an A-
(again).

This is the largest event within 80 km of the predicted location
since March 13, 2001 when an Ml 2.8 occurred. Earthquakes of
ML 3.6 (March 10, 2001) and Ml 3.4 (October 15, 2000) have also
recently occurred in this region.

Suggestions:
to Don:
Let's get those predictions out a few days before the events
occur - I suppose that may be difficult if it is a gut feeling
but if that gut is partially located in a computer, it may be
something you could think about.

to Michael, Roger etc.

Some kind of guideline regarding these predictions which fall
through the time cracks between event and public knowledge of the
event need to be developed especially for the EPR.

By the way, I know this event was not posted until this afternoon because
I checked MBMG this morning at 9:00 a.m. and the last event on the listing
was 19 July, 2001.

• Montana/Idaho earthquakes