Maybe an iffy source, but...

"Earthquake Warning for Northern California and Oregon"

'Following the recent significant earthquake off Eureka, California last week, there is a moderately higher probability of a much stronger quake along the San Andreas fault between San Francisco and Oregon in the next two weeks. According to Jack Coles, an earthquake forecaster, the recent series of quakes, including the 6.5 shaker off the Coast are possibly fore-shocks of something bigger yet to come.' Before it's news

I've never heard of Jack Coles

Sue

I've heard of the guy and supposedly he is right sometimes. But even a broken clock is right twice a day... We will see in the next two weeks, I guess.

Did he predict what happened in Haiti today?

Didn't think so...

Predicting that an earthquake might be followed by another earthquake is sort like predicting the ground is gonna get wet after it rains.

I was wondering if the sea lions left because they sensed an earthquake coming. That would be fascinating.

-Blast

He didn't get a false negative, i.e., predicted no earthquake for Haiti. That's very different from no prediction at all. Moreover, if he really does do prediction you'd expect to actually focus on specific areas, and Haiti isn't likely to have be an area of investigation.

No cites of published work. No reference to methodology or research. No error bars given for incredibly precise predictions (54% this, 64% that). The bogo meter is going off loudly here.

On one hand, looking at this guys previous predictions, specifically his forecast page, I'm underwhelmed. Lots of the faults in the US southwest and west are statistically overdue. So make a prediction, pretty much any vaguely worded prediction, and there is some chance it will be 'true' if you squint your eyes enough.

On the other hand, just because someone makes a prediction based on smoke doesn't mean an earthquake isn't going to happen some time soon. IMO a certain level of watchful alertness and well rounded preparedness will prove helpful either way. No matter what does or doesn't happen.

I'm no geologist or seismologist or anything like that, but here's my go at it. Let's see if I even get close:

I predict that before the end of the month, there will be an earthquake along the California Coast of at least magnitude 8.

Well, one can at least hope...LOL

I'll go for a Magnitude 8.1 on Saturday Feb 13th 2010 05:05 centred at 34.82N 119.00W Lake of the Woods.

Unbelievable...

I don't think its unbelievable, just that the prediction has a very very small probability of occurring with such a precise prediction. Widen the bounds of the prediction and the prediction becomes more probable, but with less actual usefulness in making it worthwhile to publish a warning to the public.

Saying a large earthquake will occur in the next 20 years somewhere in California is just as pointless even though the probability of making that prediction is very probable.

There has been a case made for something called 'Earthquake storms' though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_storm

But whether this can be applied to global scale is highly debatable.

But it might still be worthwhile looking out for domestic and wild disappearing/nervous animals i.e. The local newspaper lost pet columns have increased dramatically and poor SW reception due to increased noise, poor or strange GPS wandering/accuracy specifically due to ionospheric errors and strange cloud formations which have unusual colours.

Watching the reaction of the tourists on the beach during the boxing day tsunami is a case in point. It took a long time for the penny to drop for many of the tourists to react to the sea draining away/disappearing in front of their eyes.