Outlook: January 2023

With the exception of one or two significant earthquakes, it feels like we are in a seismic gap. There was a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in northern Afghanistan yesterday, but that was very much it. There is currently very little going on out there otherwise. It can change very quickly, but as of now, I'm taking away the World EQ Watch again. This does not mean no strong earthquakes anywhere at all. It just does not feel like a major outbreak is about to take place just yet. I still may issue a new watch today or this weekend. It is not easy as much as something big might still happen somewhere. It has been quiet for a long time. It could become active again this weekend or early next week or it may not be until the middle or latter part of the month. Lately, it has shown some signs of heavy activity breaking out in the world, but then it would go back to there being very little going on. I felt prompted to make a new post yesterday because there was a magnitude 5.9 somewhere, but there was little going on elsewhere. I would save those posts for whenever a surge in global activity was imminent, but not for rogue strong earthquakes while the rest of the world is not acting up much at all. November was a very active month. There were multiple major earthquakes occurring in that period of time, so there has been a break going on over the past month. However, there may just as much be a lot due any time now. At this point, January may not be that active. A magnitude 7 or higher is definitely not a no, but February may be more active. That can very well change, but at this point, it still looks underwhelming out there. There is however, a high likelihood of magnitude 6 or greater next week. It could start as soon as this weekend or even today. At the same time, I will not be so surprised if it is still the same by early next week. It is frustrating with how I keep having to go back and forth on whether or not to put a watch out. I want to avoid causing confusion or a boy-who-cried-wolf effect. It is not an easy situation when it is like this. The rule of thumb is to always be prepared whether or not it looks particularly active out there, especially if you are in an earthquake-prone region. There is always a chance of something big happening somewhere.