My main forecasting program assigns importance factors or “weights” to different earthquake triggering related data such as ocean and Solid Earth Tide and sun and moon position data. And they then calculate a type of probability number for individual earthquakes which takes into account the importance of those different effects. The tide data are assigned a relatively low importance or weight compared with the actual sun and moon position data.

The tide data that I use are somewhat synthetic, computer generated numbers. I determine where ocean tide and Solid Earth Tide crest and troughs were located around the world when an earthquake occurred or when a warning signal was detected. Then I average the longitudes of those 4 locations together to get a longitude which works as a moderately good reference point for comparing earthquakes and earthquakes, and earthquakes and warning signals. Working with the original locations of individual crests and troughs would probably produce better results. But my computer programs could not handle data that complex. They take about 30 minutes to complete a single forecast run as it is. In the process they probably do something like 5 million comparisons with each one involving something like 50 lines of computer code.

This might not sound very scientific. But it is based on certain scientific theories. The original equations were developed. And they were then gradually refined by trial and error. The results can be astonishing. When I went back and evaluated my warning signal data for the time before that catastrophic December 26, 2003 earthquake in Iraq they pointed to just about exactly where the earthquake was likely to occur. That absolutely amazed me!

This is also not some great mystery. All of the information including the computer programs themselves are available through my Web site.