“That means there is more moisture available for precipitation and that is, in part, fueling more rainfall.”īerry would love to see more people reporting any suspected cryoseismic activity, given that they do not register on the seismic monitoring equipment. “One of the factors is a warming ocean surface that increases evaporation and overall more moisture entering the atmosphere,” he said. While there are no hard data on what it means in terms of frost quakes, Birkel said scientific observations are showing these extreme events are creating conditions they need. “In winter this can mean patterns that bring extreme cold followed by extreme warmth.” “Maine winters are warming and as part of a changing climate, we are seeing a tendency for more extreme weather events,” according to Sean Birkel, Maine state climatologist at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute. Over time, the conditions needed for frost quakes in Maine are increasing with extreme weather events on the rise due to climate change. “A good analogy is when you step on your deck on a really cold morning and it cracks loudly.”Ĭurrent snow depth and meteorological conditions favor frost quakes near the coast, Dumont said. “You get that pressure release and it makes booms and cracks,” Dumont said. That creates a rapid freeze and expansion. Lack of snow cover means the saturated soil has little to insulate it when very cold, arctic air rushes into the area. “You need moisture in the soil and really cold, sub-zero temperatures.” “You need a shallow amount of snow,” Dumont said. It’s more typical to hear of booms once every few years in rural areas of states such as Wisconsin and Massachusetts.Those conditions need to line up just right, according to Don Dumont, warning coordinator meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Caribou. Leung suggested that in addition to social media reports, frost quakes have garnered extra attention becuase they have occurred in a major city, Toronto. As recently as Sunday, 911 operators in Illinois and Missouri took reports from callers who said they heard booms. ![]() King’s map shows frost quake markers in states such as Maine, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin. ![]() “Soon enough, it appeared to everyone that these noises were not random due to the sheer volume of reports,” Leung said. “It amazed me how gracious people were to have a Web page where they could see that other people were hearing and feeling the same strange events as them,” King said. She assembled a Google Map to allow users to pinpoint and describe their own frost quake experience. While visiting Texas during Christmas, King heard news reports of “booms” in her hometown and turned to Twitter to see what people were saying. Since the beginning of the year, Leung has tracked numerous frost quakes in freeze-gripped parts of the Midwest. Witnesses have described the sounds as being similar to gunshots, exploding bombs and falling trees. When temperatures suddenly reach near 0 degrees, the water table expands and starts cracking the soil and smashing nearby rock formations. They might crack roadways and building foundations, but that kind of result is rare.įrost quakes can strike after a pounding of rain or when the rapid melting of snow saturates underground streams. “Since frost quakes are rare, localized, cannot be monitored and tend to cause only minimal damage, the scientific community has very limited amount of information,” said University of Toronto Scarborough Climate Laboratory researcher Andrew Leung. ![]() ![]() And social media have given researchers a new way to study the little-discussed temblors.
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