Canada is so cold residents are experiencing loud booms caused by 'frost quakes'

dailymail.co.uk ^ | 13:59 EST, 5 January 2014 | James Nye

[BenLurkin]

While America collectively freaks out over their impending 'polar vortex', Canada is changing the game when it comes to cold weather phenomenon as reports of 'frost quakes' emerge from around Toronto and Ontario.

Indeed, as temperatures drop overnight to around -4f around the city hundreds of people are being startled by hearing large booms - causing them to think their homes are being broken into or gunshots are being fired.

In fact, they are merely hearing the after-effects of the frost quakes - or cryoseism - which are more commonly found on a glacier in the polar regions.

[Liberty Valance]

[BenLurkin]

“Slowly I turned...”

[Libloather]

It’s a gorgeous day down here in Floriduh.

Yeahbut, we don't have the bugs when it's minus 20.

[NautiNurse]

Tundra thunder

[bgill]

It’s going to be in the teens in Texas tonight. I’ve been thinking I might have to put on some shoes tomorrow.

[dfwgator]

We hear frost related sounds on our lake. Sounds almost like some little animal chattering, but it’s the lake ice cracking.

"Did somebody say 'Crack'?"

[Joe Boucher]

Was camping in Sequoia National Park years ago at Mineral King. In winter
We were on a frozen lake that as it froze solid it would ever so slightly expand, moving the mountain.
I was looking for a mushroom cloud.

[Vince Ferrer]

A polar vortex is more like a hurricane than a tornado, it is very large, continent sized. It creates a barrier over the poles so that warmer air from the temperate regions does not mix with the air inside the vortex. This is why there are ozone holes over the poles, because ozone naturally breaks down when it absorbs ultraviolet light, or through chemical reactions in extreme cold, and over the poles in darkness there is nothing to create ozone, or allow tropic air with ozone to replentish the air inside the vortex.

Considering that this spring over the anrartic saw the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth, I would think there will be news about a large ozone hole over Antartica this last spring(fall).

[Jonty30]

It’s -34F in Edmonton, AB, according to my cell phone app.

[Vince Ferrer]

My wife and daughter just went to the beach. It’s a gorgeous day down here in Floriduh.

Just wait till a zombie outbreak. You will be running for your life, while I, with an axe, warm boots, and a thermos of hot chocolate, will clear out the zombiecicles in no time.

[Lakeshark]

When cell phone apps from Accuweather get cold, they start to make up stuff........

Like so: this is ALL due to global warming.......

[Liberty Valance]

step by step ...

[Cementjungle]

I guess that officially counts as “chilly”

[steve86]

-11F right now.

[Ditter]

The last time I was in Canada in the winter I saw something that I will probably never see again. It was called “hoar frost”, I may have misspelled it. It was ice crystals that just hung in the air. They didn’t seem to be falling just moving around a little. The sun was out and they just sparkled in the air. Beautiful!

[Arthur McGowan]

Our high today in Fargo: -15.

It’s already -18, dropping to about -36 tonight.

[mware]

Same here. About three years ago we had a cold freeze, and I heard several very loud cracks late in the evening.

When I got up the next day several large branches had cracked and were lying on the ground.

[Cementjungle]

egad!

[angcat]

It’s 31 tonight in NE PA. Feels like a heat wave.

[PJ-Comix]

aka Frost Farts.