2219: Earthquake Early Warnings

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Earthquake Early Warnings
I was fired by the National Weather Service five minutes after they hired me for going into their code base and renaming all the tornado warnings to "tornado spoiler alerts."
Title text: I was fired by the National Weather Service five minutes after they hired me for going into their code base and renaming all the tornado warnings to "tornado spoiler alerts."

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a SPOILED EARTHQUAKE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

A week before this comic, on October 17th, California introduced an earthquake warning system in the form of an app for smartphones called MyShake. The system works through a network of sensors across the state that can detect P-waves from an earthquake, which move faster than the S-waves which cause most of the damage. Because of this difference in speed, the network can send warnings through the app about 5-20 seconds before major shaking occurs, enough time for people to take cover under tables, etc. The farther away you are the more warning you get.

In the comic Megan talks about the app, suggesting how cool it is, but Cueball is upset. He seems to think that prediction of the earthquake coming is like a spoiler that ruins the experience of how an earthquake should be felt. He states specifically trying to recognize the P-waves before they hit, however, people cannot feel the P-waves the way they do the S-waves.

He also personifies the tectonic plates (whose shifting positions causes the quake) saying that we should all feel the shaking the way the tectonic plate intended.

In the title text Cueballs mentions that he was fired from the National Weather Service five minutes after they hired him. Because the first thing he did was to rename tornado warnings as tornado spoiler alerts. Spoiler alerts is something used when for instance talking about a plot twist of a new movie, so people who haven't seen the movie but still wish to read something about it, can avoid the reading the most important details that would ruin (spoil) the experience of getting surprised. Cueball seems to genuinely wish to be surprised by these potentially lethal phenomenon, where just minutes warning may make the difference between life and death.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Megan is looking at a phone while standing next to Cueball]

Megan: Ooh, California has a new earthquake early warning app.

Cueball: Yeah, I'm so mad about it.

[Cueball throws his arms up, Megan puts her phone down]

Megan: What, why?

Cueball: It ruins the experience of trying to recognize the p-waves before the obvious main waves hit.

[Cueball puts his arms down]

Megan: So you're mad about earthquake spoilers?

Cueball: I just want to experience the shaking the way the tectonic plate intended!


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Discussion

Earthquake early warning works mostly because the sensors are closer to the epicenter than the victims. The warning is transmitted at the speed of light (radio in this case) which is much faster than the earthquake waves. So the warning arrives first at a distant victim. The difference in speed of the various earthquake waves has little to do with it. The interpretation of cueballs remarks is over reaching.162.158.62.135 20:53, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia disagree with you saying that you might get a warning from a few seconds to more than a minute just based on P-waves which move faster than S-waves. Have added this link to the description. --Kynde (talk) 21:26, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Anyone else think this drawing is weirdly grey compared to other recent ones? - Anonymous (how edgy!) 22:21 23 October 2019 (UTC)

That's why I don't use the bun spoiler app. --172.68.245.193 23:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

(Dark humo(u)r...) Would a Mass Shooting alert app involve a "trigger warning"? (/Dark whatever). 162.158.158.127 18:21, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Surface waves cause nearly all of the damage of an earthquake, not s-waves (shear waves). This should be updated. P-waves, or primary waves, arrive first and are compression waves which can also be used to determine the alignment and type of earthquake, such as a normal or reverse fault. S-waves, or secondary waves, follow the p-waves and are shear waves which do cause more damage than p-waves, but they cause far less damage than surface waves, such as Rayleigh and Love waves. Surface waves arrive last, but cause by far the most damage. Randall talks about "p-waves before the obvious main wave", which is likely a reference to p-waves vs. surface waves.