Hi Tiffany:

We've kinda take two different approaches on this board with regards to predictions. Up until recently, predictions were made in a similar fashion to yours, a general area, time, and magnitude was defined as a prediction. The problem many of us had was that when some of these predictions turned out to be true in the eyes of the predictor, many others did not see it in the same light, which lead to disagreements about validity. In addition, with vague predictions, those that were interested in evaluating the prediction against historical data could not do so with any accuracy due to the vague nature of the prediction itself.

So, the board decided to provide a mechanism to encourage well defined predictions. The result of this is the form you see at the bottom of the board. It will allow you to enter a center Lon/Lat and a distance from that point in the form of kilometers, or it will allow you to enter a rectange/square in the form of two latitudes and two longitudes, with the area of prediction being between those lines. Time is entered with a timezone, and if no timezone is supplied then UTC is assumed. Magnitude can either be a range, ie 3-4.5, or defined like 3+ (a 3 or larger).

Any valid prediction made using the prediction form will be included in the Prediction Status Table which I hope to update about once every day or two.

This formal prediction option in not a requirement, and the format you used is perfectly acceptable, although will not be evaluated in any formal sense for validity or against historical seismicity. Several predictors are not able to fit their predictions into a well defined format such as this, and that OK to. We certainly do not want to limit discussion on predictions by requiring some formal protocol.

Michael