Hourly Earthquake Forecasts by USGS

[01101001]

MSNBC: Californians get hourly quake forecasts (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7898654/)

USGS Forecast for California (http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step/)

[beskeptical]

They say hourly but it looks more like much longer term. Pretty colors. A fun forecast. But I expect the colors to stay pretty constant and folks are going to get bored with the map real quickly. Kind of like the terror alert. Does it mean much if it never changes?

[01101001]

Does it mean much if it never changes?

If you go back in their archives (http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step/maparchive/) (it's just announced, but they've been generating maps for practice, but it takes some hunting to locate them), you do see pretty much the same every hour. That's expected. I don't think it will be really interesting until there's a good quake. Then the colors will change to reflect aftershock probabilities.

[Swift]

Now we need pretty "Earthquake Girls" to stand in-front of these maps on TV news programs, giving us the Earthquake Forecast. :wink:

[Maksutov]

Now we need pretty "Earthquake Girls" to stand in-front of these maps on TV news programs, giving us the Earthquake Forecast. :wink:
Yeah, how about that one with the really nice overthrust? I guess it's not really her fault, though. The gal on the late night shift (Pyroclastic Flo) seems to have a bit too much agglutinate for my tastes though. You'd think she'd have reached the capping stage by now.

I can imagine a bunch of guys graben for these gals, if they weren't so depressed. That's the price of unconformity! For xenocrysts sake, what do they think, it's all fumarole and games? A'a! [-X

Oh well, the moho the better.

[Swift]

Very punny Maksutov. You rock man!

[aurora]

It really only changes when there is a possibility of aftershocks.