WEATHER - Ice Booms

"Mysterious 'ice booms' across North America linked to wet, cold weather" RT News 1/26/2015

Cold booms?  Frost quakes?  A winter-time meteorological phenomenon has scientists debating whether blasts heard across North America are, indeed, cryoseisms.  Most agree that the loud, inexplicable booms are associated with cold, rainy conditions.

These ice booms have rattled houses in Georgia, caused the earth to shake in Montreal, and led law enforcement from several Oklahoma counties on an unfruitful search to locate the ruckus.

"It was this very loud boom that happened all of a sudden," Marjorie in Idaho, who asked that her last name be withheld, told RT.  "My son and I went to look to see where it came from. It sounded like a door slamming very hard or something big falling down on the patio. But we couldn’t find anything.  We watched the news later to see if anyone knew what it was, but no one did.”

“It was so loud the house shook.  My kids ran in yelling, ‘what was that mommy?’”  Tracy Walker, of Kennesaw County, Georgia, told WAGA.

Residents in these areas thought the booms could be fireworks, gun shots, or blown transformers.  But meteorologists have offered a less threatening, more fascinating explanation.