BOOM! What was That Big Noise Heard Over the Weekend?

If you happened to be driving around Minnesota over the weekend and happened to hear a giant "Boom" noise and wondered what that could be... you were not alone.

Get our free mobile app

There was a huge noise heard over the weekend that had people wondering if something had exploded, like a gas line or something like that, but it seems as though it was actually from frost.  The sound this past weekend around Lake Minnetonka was loud enough to shake some windows and even houses.

Frost Quakes.  From KARE 11:

"Effectively, what's happening is you have frozen ground, because there's some water in the soil that freezes and the whole ground is frozen, and all of a sudden a crack forms really rapidly. When that happens, that releases energy that sometimes you can hear, and that's the boom. And sometimes it causes shaking," explained Lars Hansen, associate professor in the Earth & Environmental Sciences department at the University of Minnesota. 

If I heard something like that it would probably scare the crap out of me. And if you live by any sort of large body of water - which in the land of 10,000+ lakes, it could be something that you could have a good chance of hearing.  Especially when we are having the winter that we are having with a fluctuation in temperature.

If you hear something like that, obviously check it out, because it could be something more serious, or it could just be "frost quakes".

Crazy what can happen to the Earth.  Science.  I should have paid more attention.