FOR the past year, I have been doing something that many of my fellow seismologists consider foolish – even ridiculous. I have been issuing regular and frequent public earthquake forecasts for New England, broadcast as probability values in much the same way that weather forecasters predict the probability of rain (see ).
My colleagues shake their heads because they consider earthquake forecasting unreliable. And they are right: to date I have had few successes. But I am determined to continue, and I believe other seismologists should start doing the same for other parts of the US, and ideally the whole…
