Wet quake

Is it possible that earthquakes happen more often when it rains? I know that’s sort of like saying “every time I wear my blue underpants, the bus is late” but hey, I’m just throwing out a hypothesis.

Today was cold and soggy. This evening at 8:30, we had a nice shake, a magnitude 5.1 centered in Chiba-ken, just a couple dozen kilometers away.

The previous earthquake felt in Tokyo was on Saturday, January 14th. K and I were having a drink at Face Cafe, watching the trash float down the river near Ochanomizu Station. The tremblor at 3:30 was a 4.5 in Ibaraki-ken.

I mentioned the rain connection, and we talked about it a while. Maybe the wet ground transmits the shaking more. Maybe we’re usually inside when it rains, and it’s easier to feel earthquakes indoors. Maybe it rains because there is an earthquake coming. We didn’t come up with a solid answer but I’ve learned I’m not the only person to wonder about this. There’s a Q&A from the US Dept of Energy, though they pretty much dispel the idea.

I think it would be fun to get data on earthquakes and the weather then correlate it to see if I’m experiencing cognitive bias or if there might be something to this idea.

Or maybe I simply should stop wearing the blue underpants.

Posted by kuri at February 01, 2006 10:19 PM