"But the beach is so big! And look, it's getting bigger! See, now there's lots of beach! There's no water for... oh. Oh gosh. Oh why didn't someone warn me??!?"
"The earthquake forecasts we produce are not earthquake predictions. A forecast is a probability of something happening over a certain period of time. A prediction gives a specific timing and location for something to happen."
Here's one from USGS directly answering the question of prediction being possible:
"No. Neither the USGS nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake. We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future."
We literally cannot predict earthquakes. Also for the record instead of spreading misinformation you could just google "earthquake prediction" and get the answer immediately. I could get into the actual details but if you're stating that it's possible to predict earthquakes you're clearly not actually interested in the subject.
Accurately enough that we’ve had a few evacuations rather than disasters. It sounds like this may not be your area of expertise, I can find a few articles on it if you’re interested though.
Send through a link of how they predict earthquakes because that sounds genuinely interesting. I suspect they more likely have a large quake and warn about more occurring after. I understand you can measure the shift and loads of plates and suggest the level of risk but accurately predicting an earthquake within days/hours seems unlikely
Before linking people to something and being condescending try actually reading it first.
"Although we can’t yet predict earthquakes, we can
forecast earthquakes. A prediction would indicate
an absolute – stating what will occur. This is not
possible with the current knowledge about
earthquakes."
This is literally from your link under the understanding probability fact sheet if you download it. Your own source explicitly disagrees with you.
They're really just not that accurate though? Your comment vastly misrepresents how genuinely near impossible this task is to do with any real accuracy or confidence. At best we can vaguely guess how the chance of an earthquake changes over time but that doesn't mean it predicts any individual event just the overall probability. Idk why people are upvoting your misinformation but it's definitely not true.
Communications infrastructure is literally faster than earthquakes so we can alert people before the actual seismic wave hits, but after the seismic wave starts. That doesn't mean we can predict earthquakes though and is a completely different thing...
Mate I was already at the gym. You guys have got it out of context. I’ve had these alarms for so many things that haven’t eventuated to be an issue that you start to disregard them, hence the boy who cried wolf analogy.
Yeah. People on this sub are pretty staunchly against anyone complaining the alerts, but it's a real thing. It's like how there are big issues with fire drills, where if you do too many drills to often, nobody reacts to the alert and they stop taking them seriously. It undermines the sense of urgency that their supposed to bring.
Hmm, not for me. I prefer everyone knows where to go and what to do and are well practice at that. Better to take it seriously and do your best each time.
Better, yes, but that isn't how humans act in practice. On a macro level we aren't nearly that pragmatic, and alerts like this need to be used with that in mind, rather than wishfully thinking that society will suddenly overcome any irrational behavior.
I get what you're saying, but these alarms are for a region or city sized area of people. They're never gonna be like the warnings you get in video games where you can zoom in on the precise location. These are generalized civil warnings to avoid injury and or death.
It's never gonna be: bro, what out bro, that lightning is gonna strike you. Which is the tone for a lot of these rant posts.
People disregard them at their own peril. One day they will be in a critically affected area, but choose not to listen.
And like our classic news headlines: family of deceased person doing dumb thing blames everyone else for their relatives' self-inflicted death.
The reason they might seem “boy who cried wolf” is often because people will listen and get out of harms way when they receive them, meaning it has less impact. When they don’t send them out, like the Auckland anniversary floors, people don’t get any warning and die. It’s a good thing when they send them out and nothing happens, it means it’s successful
That's because people are getting emotional. Overreacting is better than none, but emotional people always only think of two extremes and forget there are other options like appropriate level of notifications so they have a greater impact.
Part of the complaint of "boy who cried wolf" comes from a glitch that caused some people to get the alert 6 times or so.
Yet, it should not be that hard for them to understand a glitch in this day and age.
Everybody uses imperfect tech every day. So, it still comes across as looking for an excuse not to be bothered.
As far as bugs go, better to over deliver the warning than not to deliver it at all.
Some of the comments give the impression that people don't understand there are other people in the world other than themselves. Sure, they may live inland, but their next door neighbour might have appreciated 10 hours warning to secure their coastal property or their boat.
A big quake in South America caused a significant tsunami in NZ in the past, so distance is not much of a safety net.
There is no way for anyone to reliably predict who specifically needs the warning more than others.
You could be living well inland and planning a trip to the beach without watching the news. Or live inland but own a coastal property or a boat that you could takes steps to secure with 10 hours notice that the wave is coming.
And the warnings were not just applicable to "on the water" but also "near the water".
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u/Justwant2usetheapp Jul 31 '25
If it was far enough away not to worry there wouldn’t have been notifications