Incorporating Intensity Distance Attenuation Into PLUM Ground‐Motion‐Based Earthquake Early Warning in the United States: The APPLES Configuration

Abstract

We develop Attenuated ProPagation of Local Earthquake Shaking (APPLES), a new configuration for the United States West Coast version of the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm that incorporates attenuation into its ground‐motion prediction procedures. Under APPLES, instead of using a fixed radius to forward‐predict observed peak ground shaking to the area surrounding a seismic station, the forward‐predicted intensity at a location depends on the distance from the station using an intensity prediction relationship. We conduct conceptual tests of maximum intensity distribution predictions in APPLES and PLUM using a catalog of ShakeMaps to confirm that the attenuation relationship in APPLES is appropriately modeling shaking distributions for West Coast earthquakes. Then, we run APPLES and PLUM in simulated real‐time tests to determine warning time performance. Finally, we compare real‐time alert behavior during the 2022 M6.4 Ferndale, California, earthquake and other recent events. We find that APPLES presents two potential improvements to PLUM by reducing over‐alerting during smaller magnitude earthquakes and by increasing warning times in some locations during larger earthquakes. APPLES can produce missed and late alerts in locations that experience shaking intensities close to the level used to issue alerts, so preferred alerting strategies with APPLES would use alert thresholds that are lower than the intensities targeted for EEW alerts. We find alerts using APPLES are also similar to those for the source‐based approaches currently used in the ShakeAlert EEW system, which will make APPLES easier to integrate into the system.