What’s a frost quake?
Frost quakes (also known as cryoseisms) can generate tremors, thundering sensations and explosive noises. But they are weather-driven, not tectonic.Last January, as Chicago suffered through a multiday subzero freeze, local TV station WGN asked viewers whether they’d been startled by any nocturnal bangs or booms.One woman said she fretted all night about her pipes, roof and furnace. Another said she searched her whole home for intruders, knife in hand. Others wondered if frigid cold could kill birds mid-flight and send them spiraling downward. Meteorologists weighed in with their own explanation: Frost quakes.“They’re kind of strange,” says Brian Jackson, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who grew up with the cracks and booms of frost quakes in Rochester, New York. “If you’ve never heard them and then you hear one, it’s eerie.”Like earthquakes, frost quakes (also known as cryoseisms) can generate tremors, thundering sensations and explosive noises. But unlike earthquakes—which...