Canada Ping!
Posted on 01/03/2014 5:41:41 AM PST by Squawk 8888
While the bitter cold makes life uncomfortable above ground, it appears it is causing problems below the surface, too.
In emails and tweets to CP24, residents from various parts of the Toronto area, including York and Peel regions, Oshawa and Rexdale, said they were awakened overnight by thunderous booms that they suspect were caused by cryoseisms, also known as frost quakes, in the frozen ground.
Some viewers said the loud booms startled them and shook their houses.
Police in York and Peel regions said they received several calls from people who were alarmed and wanted to know what was going on.
Similar noises were heard earlier this week and Christmas Eve.
Frost quakes are a rare event in the GTA and they occur when ground water freezes and the ice expands, creating an explosive expansion of air, said CP24 meteorologist Bill Coulter.
In the GTA, the temperature dropped to about -23 C overnight with a wind chill of -35.
Canada Ping!
As Global Warming increases, we’re just going to have to get used to this.
-23 C ~ -9.5 F....
looks colder in C...
Anything aboot Canada, we’ll ping you, eh!
Heard about this from a buddy of mine in the Toronto area. I’d never heard of frost quakes before. Crazy stuff.
I was curious... there’s been talk of another Maunder minimum which last occurred during the last “mini ice age” in the 15th through 17th centuries. There were historical reports of glaciers as far south as Denmark in Europe. If glaciation pushes south and parts of southern Canada and the northern US started seeing widespread glaciation, would these types of events presage that?
I’m only 33 but I’ve never heard of “frost quakes.” Is it possible that temperatures will remain low enough throughout the year that parts of the US turn into permafrost?
Oddly enough, when the temp’s dip into the teens, my deck booms. It’s just outside my bedroom and wakes me up.
*As Global Warming increases, we’re just going to have to get used to this*
It’s the hottest year EVER!...according to the “scientists” on the two ships that are stuck in the ice.
It sounds similar to the geological phenomenon of "frost wedging", except there's no loud explosion of air. Frost wedging is what causes many rock falls.
"A form of mechanical weathering caused by the freezing of water that has entered a pore or crack in a rock. The water expands as it freezes, widening the cracks or pores and often loosening or dislodging rock fragments. As the ice forms, it attracts more water, increasing the effects of frost wedging."
Some article I read yesterday claimed GW has intensified and the last 4 years are the warmest on record.
Wonder if they’ll have any broken water and gas mains.
There may have been glaciers in “Denmark” at the height of the last Ice Age (~25,000 yrs ago), but certainly not in the 17th Century.
It took the big ice sheets about 10,000 yrs to retreat to their present locations (the poles and isolated mountain pockets), and would probably also take about that long to expand again (if conditions were cool enough).
So the continental US might see permafrost again, but not for a very long time.
Did they say where ?
Hey, from looking at it from down here in Texas, -9 looks pretty cold.
I doubt that it would be that extreme. During the Little Ice Age there was extensive agriculture around the Lower Great Lakes with the Huron, Neutral and Iroquois nations all growing corn. The last period of glaciation in this area was the Ice Age ~10,000 years ago; those glaciers created the Great Lakes and the land in Southern Ontario is still rebounding from the weight of the ice, rising a couple of centimetres per decade IIRC.
The main effect of a cooling climate around here would be colder winters and shorter summers but it would take a *huge* event, such as Yellowstone erupting, to have any chance of glaciers returning.
BTW I’m 50 and never heard about this phenomenon until last week. Temperatures this cold are unusual around Toronto; normals here for this date are high -2C, low -9C. We’re at roughly the same lattitude as Oregon.
Civvie, anything you can add or clarify on this>
Yeah, you’re the people that can’t drive on an inch of snow!
:)
Same thing happens to roads in Northern Ontario, where it’s known as “frost heaving”. Huge repair bills every spring. Back in the 1970s they built a section of the Trans-Canada Highway in Sudbury, Ontario that doesn’t heave- the roadbed included a mix of gravel and styrofoam chunks. Don’t know what came of the experiment.
Broken water mains are routine here during colder winters, especially if temps drop below -10C.
Oh, and gas mains are not usually a problem- most of them are plastic with some flexibility.
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