Frost Quakes! They're Great!!!

[SLM]

Oh no, wait, that's Frosted Flakes. My bad.

Frost quakes hit Ontario

BROCKVILLE, Ont. — You can add another item to the list of things that go bump in the night.
The early winter’s extreme cold has created a series of early-morning “frost quakes” across Ontario that have frightened many people who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon.
Social media were abuzz this week with reports of the sudden, booming noises that many people mistake for ice smashing off their roof or something smacking the side of their house.
“It’s like a gunshot. A very quick sharp noise and it is loud. Loud enough for my wife to shriek,” Brockville developer Michael Veenstra said.
Veenstra and his wife have heard such noises during early morning walks near the Brockville Mental Health Centre for the past couple of weeks.
“If you never heard it before, it’s pretty eerie. It can be frightening if you don’t know what’s going on,” Veenstra said.
Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said the noise occurs when water filters into porous soil, freezes suddenly and becomes subject to shifting.
“It’s like a low-grade earthquake,” he said.
Coulson said potholes and cracks in building foundations often occur under similar circumstances with alternating extreme cold and warm temperatures.
The cryoseisms, as they’re known scientifically, have been occurring across a wide part of Ontario for weeks.
Richard St. Germain, who lives near Athens, Ont., said the latest frost quake hit Friday morning.
“Kaboom! It was like a car was dumped into my backyard out of the sky,” he said. “It was a huge thud, just a boom.
“It came right out of the ground. Like the first shot of an earthquake.”


Frost quakes hit Ontario | Canada | News | Toronto Sun


Seriously? That many people have really never heard this before?

 

[Cliffy]

Have you ever heard a tree crack in the cold. I have seen tree explode from freezing. Its the same principle.

 

[taxslave]

Oh no, wait, that's Frosted Flakes. My bad.

Frost quakes hit Ontario

BROCKVILLE, Ont. — You can add another item to the list of things that go bump in the night.
The early winter’s extreme cold has created a series of early-morning “frost quakes” across Ontario that have frightened many people who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon.
Social media were abuzz this week with reports of the sudden, booming noises that many people mistake for ice smashing off their roof or something smacking the side of their house.
“It’s like a gunshot. A very quick sharp noise and it is loud. Loud enough for my wife to shriek,” Brockville developer Michael Veenstra said.
Veenstra and his wife have heard such noises during early morning walks near the Brockville Mental Health Centre for the past couple of weeks.
“If you never heard it before, it’s pretty eerie. It can be frightening if you don’t know what’s going on,” Veenstra said.
Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said the noise occurs when water filters into porous soil, freezes suddenly and becomes subject to shifting.
“It’s like a low-grade earthquake,” he said.
Coulson said potholes and cracks in building foundations often occur under similar circumstances with alternating extreme cold and warm temperatures.
The cryoseisms, as they’re known scientifically, have been occurring across a wide part of Ontario for weeks.
Richard St. Germain, who lives near Athens, Ont., said the latest frost quake hit Friday morning.
“Kaboom! It was like a car was dumped into my backyard out of the sky,” he said. “It was a huge thud, just a boom.
“It came right out of the ground. Like the first shot of an earthquake.”


Frost quakes hit Ontario | Canada | News | Toronto Sun


Seriously? That many people have really never heard this before?

For sure no one that grew up on the west coast has.

 

[damngrumpy]

I remember when I was just a little guy listening to trees crack and fall to the ground.
I would be three or four and the frost came early. Fruit trees were in bloom and the
old smudge pots were under each tree. Some of them the tree split anyway and it
was like thunder to a kid. It was the frost of 49-50 damn near wiped out the tree fruit
industry took five or six year to recover. Thinking about it I can almost see the black
smoke and smell the kerosene. Frost quake what next.

 

[spaminator]

Frost quake hits GTA, southern Ontario
January 3, 2014
People in the GTA and southern Ontario were startled awake overnight by a mysterious bang which was determined to be a frost quake.
Frost quake hits GTA, southern Ontario | CityNews

 

[tay]

The first one happened here overnight Thursday into Friday. I didn't hear it but others did.


The one I heard was around 8 am Friday and it was 2 consecutive very loud thuds that seemed to come from different areas of the house. One sounded like it was on the roof at one end and the other on the wall of the garage at the other end.


I'm thinking if the one overnight was as loud as the ones I heard, I would have woken up..............

 

[DaSleeper]

Pretty common in Northern Ontario....
The theory is that nails in uninsulated portions of the house like the roof or near windows...shrink from the cold by a small fraction of an inch and the release makes that sound.

 

[Locutus]

Ya oughta hear me after binging on cabbage rolls.

 

[SLM]

Pretty common in Northern Ontario....
The theory is that nails in uninsulated portions of the house like the roof or near windows...shrink from the cold by a small fraction of an inch and the release makes that sound.

I thought it was just the ice cracking? From time to time I'm sure I've heard (quieter) versions of what they're describing in the early spring or sometimes during a January thaw. I can recall hearing really loud versions of the same noise (as they describe in the article) shortly after the ice storm in Ottawa back in '98 (or '99, whenever the hell it was, lol).

 

[Spade]

Noises from studs as the cold sets in are common. Studs will twist, nails will pop, Adding cold to a house is like adding milk to Rice Krispies. Snap, crackle, pop!

 

[Nuggler]

What if you think it's a frost quake but it's really a terrorist setting off a bomb on your lawn ?? just sayin.

 

[Spade]

What if you think it's a frost quake but it's really a terrorist setting off a bomb on your lawn ?? just sayin.

"You are either with Jack Frost or with the terrorists."
- A president of a southern republic

 

[spaminator]

Frost quakes heard across GTA

01/07/2014 08:50 AM Erin Criger
Frost quakes were heard overnight and early Tuesday morning, with dozens of loud booms reported across the GTA.
CityNews meteorologist Natasha Ramsahai said a frost quake is caused when rain and ice seep down into the soil and then freezes when temperatures drop.
“Water expands when it freezes and when it expands in frozen soil it literally puts a lot of stress on that dirt and will release that energy all of a sudden, very much like an earthquake releases that energy and shifts the ground,” she said.
CityNews and 680News readers certainly heard them, waking up to booms from Burlington to Woodbridge. One person said it sounded like someone breaking into her home!Did you hear one? Let us know.
This graphic explains what causes the frost quakes which have been reported in the GTA since an ice storm on Dec. 21-22, 2013. CITYNEWS

Frost quakes heard across GTA | CityNews
Frostquake alert!

By Mike Strobel ,Toronto Sun

First posted: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 06:38 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 06:56 PM EST
No frostquakes in my downtown neighbourhood so far, other than a hooker or two slipping on the ice.
But everyone else is talking about them. “Frostquake” is a hot new buzzword of this cold spree, along with “polar vortex” and “grocery gift cards.”
Even sober people have reported them across the GTA lately — big bangs that supposedly rattle dishes and wake the dead drunk.
Colleague Don “Pistol” Peat was startled from his slumber at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. “The earth did not move,” he adds, and his wife says it didn’t move for her, either, though it was noisy.
For once the rest of the world is talking about our frostquakes, not our crackheads.
Britain’s Daily Mail reported how citizens of our “notoriously cold nation” were frightened and confused by the sounds.
So frostquakes are new? A symptom of global warming or Miley Cyrus?
Not at all. They’re actually cryoseisms, which occur in locales like your backyard or neighbourhood. Water in saturated ground freezes, expands, then cracks to relieve pressure. Same thing can happen on rivers, lakes, glaciers or in your roof.
I’ll never forget the winter of 1934. You could skate from Toronto to Rochester and newspapers reported a distressing cacophony of snaps, crackles and pops.
This year, too, “we’ve really seen a perfect storm for cryoseisms,” says Dave Phillips, the sage of Environment Canada, starting with the July 8 deluge that soaked the GTA.
Cracking ice sounds like gunshots or a ninja trying to break in. Cops got scores of 911 calls over the holidays.
Luckily, you’re more likely to be eaten by a shark or struck by lightning than to perish in a frostquake.
“Unless it frightens the bejeebers out of you, or you fall off your barstool,” says Phillips.
A frostquake’s bark is bigger than its bite — a slight vibration at most. So it won’t kill you, unless you walk into a tree while texting about one.
Indeed social media is a main cause of outbreaks of frostquakes and other phenomena, such as water spouts, tornadoes, UFOs and sensible Habs fans.
Used to be, you’d hear something weird and discuss it with a neighbour or two. Now, you can announce it to the world, and vice versa.
Sexy hashtags are born, trends develop. Suddenly it’s not just winter, it’s a POLAR VORTEX!
You yell “Cryoseism!” and everybody says ‘Huh? What?’ You yell “Frostquake” and the twitterverse explodes.
We all want to be part of it, to have bravely survived a frostquake.
You can bet a few of those “frostquake” tweets were about a falling twig, a backfire, or a raccoon trying to get warm.
Others, of course, are real, but expect them to peter out, with our new snowfall muffling the din and much of the ice pressure already relieved. Besides, the deep freeze is expected to be gone by week’s end.
But don’t unpack your speedo, unless you are fleeing the frostquake zone for Fiji.
Every sane Canadian knows we face many weeks of bad drivers, sloppy lobbies, runny noses and maddeningly empty bike lanes.
Funny timing, but Phillips, who holds the Order of Canada, was swearing in new Canadians at a citizenship ceremony at Scarborough Town Centre on frigid Tuesday. More than 150 newbies, from every balmy corner of the globe.
“I try to tell them about our weather, how we’re the second coldest country (after Russia) and the snowiest,” says Dave. “But I tell them not to fear.”
Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t all run screaming from the mall and catch the first flight back home.
Strobel’s city column usually runs Monday to Thursday. mike.strobel@sunmedia.ca
A view of downtown Toronto on Tuesday from the city's western shoreline. (ERNEST DOROSZUK, Toronto Sun)

Frostquake alert! | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun

 

[karrie]

Seriously? That many people have really never heard this before?

I've lived in Northern Alberta most my life, and have never heard this. Ice heaves on lakes, trees cracking, power lines singing because of the tension from the cold, northern lights singing, but never frost quakes. Never even heard OF them.

 

[Nuggler]

I've lived in Northern Alberta most my life, and have never heard this. Ice heaves on lakes, trees cracking, power lines singing because of the tension from the cold, northern lights singing, but never frost quakes. Never even heard OF them.

""
Not at all. They’re actually cryoseisms, which occur in locales like your backyard or neighbourhood. Water in saturated ground freezes, expands, then cracks to relieve pressure. Same thing can happen on rivers, lakes, glaciers or in your roof.""


You're not alone, Karrie. Living in the apparent frost quake epicentre of Canada, the name is a complete unknown to me. That and a few thousand other things................


Heard trees explode, ice boom, and the roof crack a few times; but never a "frost quake".


That "ice boom" thing is a tad un-nerving, specially when you're doing the ice fishing thing. Scary.


One guy took off out of his ice shack, yelling, and running around in circles. Found out he was a politician. Go figure.

 

[SLM]

I've lived in Northern Alberta most my life, and have never heard this. Ice heaves on lakes, trees cracking, power lines singing because of the tension from the cold, northern lights singing, but never frost quakes. Never even heard OF them.

Oh don't misunderstand me, I've heard the sound they are describing plenty of times but I've never heard the of the term "frost quake" either. And at the risk of sounding cliche, I'd venture to guess it's a recently coined term defined as to give the GTA residents a description befitting a new experience for the denizens of the 'centre of the universe', lol.