I guess I should clarify my line of thought.

Hurricane forecasting is farther along than earthquake forecasting. Of course, meteorologists have the benefits of predicting an above-ground phenomenon, satellites being the obvious, distinct advantage.

But even with Dr. William Gray's convoluted and complex formulae, the best that they can do in the long-term is predict how many hurricanes will form in the Atlantic Ocean and how many are likely to hit the United States. Even in the short-term, even with the satellite information, they can't say exactly where the hurricane will hit until the last moments.

Earthquake forecasting has the disadvantage of trying to predict the events taking place deep under-ground. With earthquake forecasting, the best that the mainstream seismologists have been able to do so far is give the probability that an earthquake has "x%" probability of occurring on such-and-such a fault in the next "y" number of years.

Then you have a person, such as Jim Berkland, who makes the same prediction month after month, year after year, of an earthquake of magnitude 3.5 to 6.0 occurring in the San Francisco area or the LA area, or a 3.5M occurring in the Pacific Northwest. (With the ongoing activity at Mt. St. Helens, so many months that was like shooting fish in a barrel -- he was bound to get at least one hit.) So I don't give much credence to his method. He's not telling me anything. He tries to be place- and time-specific with varied results.

My point is that real present-day earthquake prediction probably will end up lying somewhere in between. Nothing is arrived at overnight. Success will come slowly, incrementally.

No one can tell me when the next 5.0M or greater earthquake will occur in California -- forget trying to zero in on a particular fault. Shouldn't science be concentrating on the greater picture and stop trying to be so specific about the parameter of location?

So back to my question -- when will the next 5.0M or greater earthquake occur in California. Seems like an easy enough question. I'm not asking for location, per se -- California is a BIG state. If we could do that much, maybe then we could start to concentrate on specifics.

Parkfield -- there's a good example of what I'm pointing out. Earthquake Capitol of California. They predicted a ??M was due to happen. However, it didn't take place for how long? 10-15-20 years after they said it was due to happen?

I think that those who endeavor to predict earthquakes should rethink what they are trying to predict. They are not God -- only God knows the randomness that He built into every system in our universe. Seisomology is a science in its infancy, comparatively speaking. Why is everyone expecting so much, so fast?

Barbara