Howell — It’s not unusual to hear explosions in Howell around the Fourth of July. But two weeks before Christmas? This was a new one.
Howell was rocked by a couple explosions on Dec. 13, and seemingly everyone was wondering what the hell was happening.
“Anyone else feel that big boom? Felt like an underground explosion, Howell near Burger King and Aldi,” wrote a woman named Rebecca in the Facebook group “Howell MI Happenings.”
Possible explanations ranged from a transformer blowing up to somebody shooting off winter fireworks to a meth lab explosion.
Turns out it was something a lot even more rare: a frost quake.
Officially known as a cryoseism, a frost quake is “a seismic event caused by a sudden cracking action in frozen soil or rock saturated with water or ice, or by stresses generated at frozen lakes.”
What apparently happened in Howell is that when the temperature quickly dipped from the 30s on Wednesday afternoon to the high single digits Thursday morning, the water trapped in the soil beneath Howell started to freeze and expand, stressing its surroundings. The stress then built up and exploded.
According to the reports on Facebook, there were at least a couple frost quakes on Thursday morning between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., concentrated in an area just east of downtown. People reported hearing them in about a one-mile radius.
I live about a mile from the blast zone, and unfortunately, I was out of town at the time and missed all the fun.
I had never heard of frost quakes before—much less one happening in my hometown—but evidently, they’re fairly rare, because you need to have a perfect combination of weather and geological events to make one happen. Among other things, you need to have a quick and severe drop in temperature within 48 hours and only a slight bit of snow on the ground. You also need a significant amount of water in the soil, either through thawing snow or groundwater.
Unlike earthquakes, which can be felt for miles around, frost quakes are concentrated. Only a handful of states have ever reported them: Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana in the Midwest; Tennessee down South; New York and the New England states out East; and Alaska.
They usually don’t do much damage, but you can see cracks or fissures in the ground.
While they didn’t cause much damage, they sure scared the hell out of people in Howell.
“So many reports of hearing explosions lately! Scary!” wrote Jill.
“Shook my house!” said Nathan.
And my favorite, from a Howell resident named Sarah: “I was outside with the dog. I hear a loud noise and thought my daughter slammed a door inside because I asked her to empty the dishwasher. Hope everything is OK!”
Buddy Moorehouse teaches documentary filmmaking at Hillsdale College.
