Notices of two new, potentially useful apps arrived today courtesy of SFO airport and the CalTech/Berkeley/USGS consortium working on the earthquake alert system.
At www.flysfo.com/noise you can now see the permanent noise monitor readings and view the air traffic around SFO. The noise abatement page has always been where you can file a noise complaint–for what that's worth. The permanent noise monitors look like the one I had at my house for a couple of weeks. The web page is updated in real time, but there is no indication of which noise level is being reported. I have bookmarked the page and will be monitoring the monitors when it gets loud as it did two evenings ago. Watching it for just a few minutes, it appears that the Hillsborough monitor consistently reports in at 2-5 points higher than the southern Burlingame site.
On the shaking front, the state has opened up the MyShake app to the public. It arrived in the Apple App store yesterday and I have downloaded it. The Chronicle article notes a Google Play version is also available and reports
Cell-phone alerts will be issued only when the system’s sensors detect a quake with a magnitude greater than 5.0 and a complex set of algorithms projects the shaking will cause significant damage. Just a couple such temblors hit California each year.
Alerts via the MyShake app will go out for earthquakes that exceed 4.5 magnitude and to areas projected to have minor shaking, about what would be felt in a building struck by a truck, said Richard Allen, director of UC Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory and one of the architects of the warning system.
After the three reminders about earthquakes we have had in the last two weeks, it is a timely addition to your phone.
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