When Will the Next Earthquake Hit Washington State?

It isn’t like you can see an earthquake brewing two weeks out. I call earthquakes “come-as-you-are disasters” because you are either ready or not ready at the time of the event.

The best science can give us is some probabilities of an event occurring. Below is the prognostication for Puget Sound and western Washington state.

“The best estimate from the USGS for a magnitude 6.5 or larger crustal earthquake in the Puget Sound Region alone is ~15% probability in 50 years. This is similar to the ~14% chance the Cascadia Subduction Zone will unleash a magnitude 9 earthquake. While most large fault systems in the region have long reoccurrence rates, collectively they pose a substantial hazard. We do not know which one will produce the next large earthquake. The deep, Nisqually like earthquakes, are indeed the most common with an ~84% probability of reoccurrence in 50 years.”

This last type of earthquake has been pretty regular, with earthquakes happening in 1949, 1965 and 2001.