Torontonians awakened by Frost Quake

An earth quake might be triggered by various factors. A volcano, a movement deep inside the earth layers, a movement around a subduction zone may result in an earth quake. But in Toronto some people heard a very loud bang last night (early morning around 2-3 am)Jan 3rd 2014 which is related to extreme cold weather and recent ice storm.  It looks it happened before  north of Toronto at the end of December 2013. The cause of the big bang is not earth tectonic but frozen earth. As a result of a sudden deep freeze inside a dry ground, ice expands and cracks. Extreme cold weather continues for 3 days and temperature wend down to -23 C in my balcony weather station in East York Toronto.Northern areas such as Richmond hills experienced -28 C. Temperature at the moment (around 1 pm) is -18 C. With the wind chill the temperature  feels like -27 C. Such an extreme cold weather happened years ago in 1981.So a very cold ice expands and water from surface penetrates inside the dry soil and freeze inside the ground below. Frozen ground expands but doesn't have enough room for its expansion. This circumstance results in a shallow cracks in ground and surrounding rock. Geologists called this phenomena Cryoseism which may happen inside a glacier or a frozen ground. Some Torontonians not only heard it but also felt it. They called police and complained a gunshot or earth movement.

Courtesy Citynews Toronto 

Freezing rain covers Toronto

Toronto went  below zero C last night and caused the city to experience a very icy condition across the city. A day before the ice storm the city temperature went well above 3 C. As a result, part of the previous snow melted and refrozen 24 hours later. Toronto roads are slippery and some old trees could not tolerate heavy weight of ice and fell down on streets and power lines.Some areas across the city, black out and power shortage is a major problem. Because of ice storm TTC stops using street cars to save the energy.250,000 of Toronto residents are without power(here). Toronto continues to have below zero C temperature so black ice will predominate on the city streets for more days to come.The park and street trees are covered with icy crystal clear freezing rain.