More Earthquakes than Usual Early in the New Year?

December was pretty much a typical month seismically as I expected. There were 3 quakes of 6.5 magnitude or greater in the last month of 2012. There was also a quake that most authorities agree was a 6.4 magnitude quake off the western coast of Baja California. However, it is my understanding that this figure, converted to moment magnitude or Mw, was done from an estimate of 6.3 Ms. ISC in the UK assigns it a 6.5 Ms value, so I am inclined to think that it could actually have more likely been a 6.5 or even a 6.6 on the Mw scale if someone were to give it a second look.

Of the three quakes that NEIC has as being of 6.5 or greater in magnitude, two fell within my predicted window time ranges where I felt earthquakes would be more likely. That is actually not too surprising because my windows, based primarily on the average astrological aspect value ratings for that month, took up an estimated 52.4% of the time during that 31 day month. Statistically, the most likely scenario would be that two quakes would fall within my windows if there were only 3 quakes in the 6.5 or larger magnitude range occurring during that month.

Of the few windows that I defined prior to the month, the last one of 11.5 days was the longest. A 7.3 magnitude quake near Japan did fall within an 89 hour window of mine, but then a 7.1 magnitude event in the Banda Sea occurred between that window and the next one. After that quake and before the start of the next super sized window, I wrote another hub trying to narrow down the possibilities and suggested that the window could be broken into several smaller parts. The first one would be for 4 days at the start of the 11.5 window (within which the Baja California quake occurred), a 21 hour window centered at 21h43m,GMT on the 21st or just 45 minutes before a 6.7 magnitude quake occurred in the Vanuatu area of the south Pacific, followed by two small windows of 4 hours and 6 hours on the 22nd and 24th respectively.

The four windows within the larger 11.5 window came out to 5 days and 7 hours. If those windows were substituted for the larger one the total time frame of the predicted windows would come out to less than 30% of the 31 days in December. Using that smaller period, one would expect only 1 quake of the 3 quakes of 6.5 magnitude or greater to fall within them. Since there were 2 such quakes within the alternate window areas, the results would be about twice what would be expected statistically.

Since I had excellent results in September with narrower windows and the results were again very good for December 2012 when I reverted to more refined windows, I have decided to do the same for January 2013.

But there is also something new I have to decided to try at the start of the new year. Instead of just looking at what astrological aspects seem to herald earthquakes, I am now looking at aspects between planets that seem to put the breaks on any earthquake potential (or coincide with periods when earthquakes are less likely to occur). So now, it isn't just those areas outside the windows that are less likely, but also when neutralizing aspect values intermix with aspect values that normally define high quake periods. In the graphic below you can see the trend line for just such a period of neutralization; the red lined spike later in the month of January 2013. Since its peak is located outside of my windows for earthquake potential, January 2013 doesn't appear to be a good example to test it out. February appears to be more interesting (as I will explain when it comes time to wrap things up for January 2013).

Here are the dates to look out for earthquake wise during January 2013:

1. Lasting 6 days and 9 hours, the first window opens at 7h00m, GMT on 1/8 and closes at 16h00m, GMT on 1/14. The peak is at 13h40m, GMT on 1/9 (the midpoint is at 11h30m, GMT on 1/11).

2. Lasting 24 hours, the second window opens at 00h00m, GMT on 1/19 and closes at 00h00m, GMT on 1/20. The peak is at 1h36m, GMT on 1/19 (the midpoint is at 12h00m, GMT on 1/19).

3. Lasting 48 hours, the third window opens at the same time as the other one ends (which hints that an earthquake may be more likely then than at the peak of either window). Thus, the last window opens at 00h00m, GMT on 1/20 and closes at 00h00m on 1/22. The peak is at 6h45m, GMT on 1/21 (the midpoint is at 0h00m, GMT on 1/21).

And here are the most likely locations for any earthquakes of 6.5 magnitude or greater that should fall within the above windows (the numbers of each location list corresponds to the numbers above). Each list is put in order from most likely to least likely with the exception of locations within the U.S. (which are always listed at the end).

1. Tajikistan, Indonesia, Jamaica, Italy, Iran, China, Algeria, Yemen, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, and California.

2. Italy, Japan, Venezuela, Greece, Tajikistan, Spain, Algeria, California, and Alaska.

3. Italy, Russia, Canada, Syria, Chile, Kyrgyzstan, Tajihistan, California, and Alaska.

With the windows lasting a total of 9 days and 9 hours, they comprise 30% of the month of January 2013. I am expecting there to be at least 5 earthquakes of 6.5 magnitude or greater for the month, with at least 2 falling within my windows, but more likely 3. If the later it would be twice what statistics would say was the most probable scenario (1 or 2 quakes out of 5).

Copyright © 2012 Joseph W. Ritrovato