How do I set up my phone to get earthquake early warning alerts?
If you are in California, Oregon or Washington, you can receive earthquake early warning alerts. Early warning alerts are for an earthquake happening right now and are meant for you to take protective action.
To set up, all you need to do is add your Homebase, ie the address where you live. If the app didn't already prompt you to enter a Homebase, you may enter it yourself by going into the settings page of the app. That is all you need to do.
You cannot add multiple Homebases, but you may choose to turn on Location permissions so you can get alerted for example at your workplace too.
The early warning alerts are sent for all earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more in areas of light shaking or greater. These thresholds are set by government agencies and cannot be altered. The system is designed to rapidly detect an earthquake, estimate its magnitude and shaking intensity, and to send alerts. It is possible that the intial magnitude estimate is incorrect. It is possible that the light shaking is imperceptible to you.
How do I use the app?
MyShake team's primary goal is to deliver critical earthquake early warning alerts as quickly and as reliably as possible. MyShake sends early warning alerts within seconds of a magnitude 4.5 or larger earthquake, to all devices in the MMI3 shaking region. This feature works best if your Homebase is set up.
Being a generic earthquake app for a global audience, MyShake also provides normal (ie non-critical) notifications about local earthquakes smaller than M4.5 and about global earthquakes larger than M6.5. These normal notifications are meant for your awareness about earthquakes and to learn more about earthquakes in general.
The easiest way to use the app is to tap on those normal (non-critical) global and local earthquake notifications that we send to you. Being engaged with the app from time to time has the additional benefit of keeping the app fresh (ie not put the app into deep sleep) and always ready to deliver the critical earthquake early warning alerts for your safety.
Why did I not receive an alert for a recent earthquake near me?
We send alerts for earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more in areas of light shaking or greater. Check to see if the earthquake you experienced was large enough. You might have to wait several minutes before the MyShake app will show the quake (click the refresh button, ie the circle-arrow button, to refresh the map).
This alert threshold of M4.5 is set by scientists and government agencies. Smaller earthquakes are unlikely to create damaging shaking, hence we do not alert for smaller earthquakes.
If the earthquake was M4.5+, check to see if you got the alert. If not, check to see if your Homebase is set, or your location permissions is enabled.
If all that looks good, and you didn't receive an alert, we can debug it. Please go into the MyShake app -> Settings -> Debug Info and e-mail the debug information (see screenshots below). We will take a look.
Why is an earthquake not showing on the map?
The map displays earthquakes globally at magnitude 3.5 or higher by default. If you don't see the earthquake, check your map filters and adjust as needed.
If the earthquake is very recent, it may take several minutes for USGS to publish it and for it to appear on the map. Please refresh the map in a few minutes to see the earthquake.
Why do I receive notifications of earthquakes far away?
MyShake is an earthquake app used throughout the world. Therefore, by default, we configured the system to notify you of M6.5 or larger earthquakes anywhere in the world.
NOTE: These are
The latest release of the app (ie, v3.1.28 or later) will also notify you of M3.0 or larger earthquakes within 50mi of your Homebase (ie the smaller local earthquakes). This is in response to feedback from our users who expect to be notified of local earthquakes at magnitudes smaller than M4.5.
You may visit the Settings->Custom Earthquake Notifications page to modifiy these normal notification settings.
NOTE: Early warning settings are automatic, there is no configuration to be made for early warning alerts, besides setting your Homebase.
You may also add up to three custom locations for which are you interested in receiving notifications.
How do I check my alert log?
All messages that the MyShake app receives are logged. Please see screenshots below to review whether you received the message. Earthquake Early Warning alerts will always show with the big DROP, COVER, HOLD ON! image.
Sorry, you cannot delete entries from this log. Entries older than 18 months will auto-delete themselves. These entries are useful for both informational and debugging purposes. In case you are concerned about space, not to worry, they do not occupy more than 10MB of space :-)
What is this earthquake detection feature and do I need it?
The earthquake detection feature of the app is the citizen science project (on Android phones only), where the accelerometer on your phone is monitored for earthquake like signals and fed into the Berkeley Seismology Lab for earthquake research. You may disable this feature by swiping off the notification from your notification tray. If that wasn't successful, you may disable it by going to the app settings and turning on the battery saving mode, ie, Settings -> Battery saving mode -> ON
Why are MyShake alerts not available in other countries?
Although MyShake was originally created in order to research the viability of using smartphone accelerometer data for earthquake alerting, this activity is still in the research phase.
In order to deliver earthquake early warning, MyShake uses a system called ShakeAlert. ShakeAlert uses a network of traditional seismic stations to detect the onset of earthquakes. There are systems similar to ShakeAlert in other countries like Japan, China, Mexico etc., countries that have invested in the installation of a dense network of seismic stations. Unfortunately, many countries (such as Türkiye) do not have such capabilities yet.
What is the Great ShakeOut event?
The Great ShakeOut, is an annual drill for the public to practice life-saving Drop-Cover-HoldOn response to an earthquake. The event is held on the 3rd Thursday of October. This year, it is on October 16th.
Is MyShake conducting a drill?
As part of our participation in the Great ShakeOut, MyShake will send a DRILL alert to our users in CA, OR and WA on October 16th between 10:15am and 10:30am.
Your readiness to receive the ShakeOut drill is the same as your readiness to receive live earthquake alerts, ie, Set your Homebase
Since the drill alert was introduced in version 3.1.24 (in February this year), please check that your app version is v3.1.24 or greater. The app version can be seen in the lower right corner of the Settings page after you have scrolled all the way down. It should say v3.1.24 or above, as shown in the screenshots below.
This is how the drill alert would look:
This is how the drill alert will sound:
Can I opt out of the receiving the ShakeOut drill alert?
MyShake encourages our users to practice the earthquake drill. Practising the drill makes you better prepared to handle a real earthquake.
If you do not wish to receive the ShakeOut drill message, you may temporarily disable notifications for the MyShake app. Please remember to turn your notifications ON again to receive the critical alert during a real earthquake.