Earthquakes and Planetary Alignments, Yet Again.

As I write it is the waning hours of September 19. Why does this matter? Because the Barcarroler had predicted a 6.6 magnitude quake on the 18th.

The Barcarroler predicts earthquakes based on a combination of planetary alignments and astrology. I’ve written about alignments and earthquakes before (See here, here and here). Basically, while it is plausible that crustal tides might set off earthquakes lunar alignments have no significant effect. The tidal effects of distant planets, millions to billions of times weaker than the Moon, can have no effect.

None the less, this does not deter the Barcarroler. Over the past 12 months (2012, 2013 predictions) he has made 15 predictions for earthquakes of magnitude 7 or over, how has that panned out?

Actual earthquake dates and magnitudes from Geosciences Australia. Of the 15 Earthquakes predicted in the 12 months since August 2012, one fell within the prediction interval (the magnitude was out as was the location, but we will accept this one) and one fell just outside the predicted time (and in completely different spots).

If we include the near miss this represents an 87% failure rate. If we look at the 18 earthquakes of M7+ that did occur, this represents an 89% failure rate. This is just slightly worse than what could have been achieved by guessing randomly (you would have expected to get 3 earthquakes right just from random guessing allowing +/- one day either side of the guessed range). So, we can conclude that the Barcarroler’s prediction success is worse than just guessing.

Oh, and has a magnitude 6+ quake occurred? No, another Barcarroler’s prediction failed. As there is a magnitude 6-6.9 quake every 2.7 days on average, missing this is pretty sad for his method, as if a 87% failure rate wasn’t bad enough.

A good video on why the Barcarroler’s alignments are not valid is here.  My extensive list of postings on astronomical phenomena and earthquakes is here.