What is PatternWatch?
Before earthquakes and other major events, people often notice small things: a pet acting strange, an unusual dream, something feeling "off."
These observations are usually forgotten — until after something happens. Then scientists ask "did you notice anything?" But by then, memory is unreliable and confirmation bias takes over.
The key insight:
PatternWatch collects observations continuously, BEFORE anyone knows an event is coming. When something happens, we can look back at what was logged in the days before — with clean, unbiased, timestamped data.
How it works
Report what you notice
Takes 10 seconds. Pet weird? Dream vivid? Something feel off? Log it.
We timestamp and map it
City-level location only. No personal data stored.
Patterns emerge
When many people report similar things in the same area, we detect clusters.
After events, we correlate
What was logged before the earthquake? Before the volcanic activity? We check.
What we're NOT
- ✕We don't make predictions
- ✕We don't tell you an earthquake is coming
- ✕We don't sell your data
What we ARE
- ✓Open data for anyone to analyze
- ✓Transparent algorithms you can verify
- ✓Public infrastructure, not a business
Why "all good" matters
When you report a normal day, you're creating baseline data. Science needs to know what "normal" looks like to spot what's abnormal. Your boring Tuesday is valuable data.
Privacy
- •Location is city-level only (not your address)
- •No account required
- •No personal data stored
- •All code is open source
PatternWatch is a Rainbow Lily Studio project.
Open source · No profit · Public data