Can the National Seismic Hazard Maps be used as an earthquake forecast tool for the near future?
Not really. The USGS Seismic Hazard Maps website and the Unified Hazard Tool (for building custom maps) are designed to display the probability of different events that might occur in a several-year to several-decade period. The model bases all probability estimates on the average rate of earthquakes over long periods of time.
As you shorten the time window, you should expect greater and greater fluctuations in what might be observed from the mean behavior that would be observed if you had a thousand year time span at your disposal.
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San-Andreas Fault
Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain. By Ikluft - Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3106006
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Collection of USGS still images taken after the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake highlighting the damage to buildings and infrastructure.
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Collection of USGS still images taken after the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake highlighting the damage to buildings and infrastructure.
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2014 National Seismic Hazard Map
2014 U.S. seismic hazard map showing the earthquake peak ground acceleration (PGA) that has a 2% chance of being exceeded in 50 years. Red indicates the highest hazard, and gray indicates the lowest hazard.