Hi Petra,
At the moment I am quite happy to not be breathing the smoke and fire which is consuming my old neighborhood west of Denver. Of course, I feel for the people who did not move out in time, but the signs were all there - the leaves and grass were all brown when I left in mid-May and the drought was continuing - fire season was expected to be deadly this year as the current situation suggests.
Here in the northeast, we have having plenty of wonderful weather. The high on Wednesday was
52 degrees, one of the coolest June's on record and it is supposed to rain through the weekend. I guess El Nino is to blame (as it is always to blame no matter what the problem is).
As for me, I have been relaxing and enjoying the risk free environment here. I just hope someone doesn't bring a terrorist threat to this beautiful area.
There is a city of Lowell nearby in Massachusetts, but I appreciate you pointing out
the town of Lowell Idaho as well. Some day I'd
like to get out there to see it - maybe Don could predict an earthquake or two for the area.
It has really been quiet recently as far as seismic activity goes.
An earthquake of M 6.5 or 6.7 occurred about
49S 97E in the southeast Indian Ocean yesterday,
and it is interesting that it was followed several hours later by two unusual events in Ontario, north of Minnesota near the antipode at
50N 93W (although the antipode is closer to
Lake Erie - this is about 175 degrees away) there
may have been an effect.
Anyway, my best to all you who continue to work at the thankless task of earthquake prediction. But maybe it's fun - even thankless tasks can be fun if they are done in the right spirit.

Check out the Canadian earthquakes link below
for more information on the Ontario events.

• Recent Canadian Earthquakes