A couple of earthquakes (3.5 in Cabazon and a 3.0 in Thousand Palms) struck the Coachella Valley today. Combine that with the temperature heating up and you should be seeing a few posts on Facebook about how it’s “earthquake weather”. But is that really a thing?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
According to a Facebook post from your friend Monica – who recently saw San Andreas on HBO, “totally felt” the Thousand Palms quake even though she was driving her car in La Quinta, and “knows what earthquake weather is” because she has lived in SoCal for 2 years now – it’s definitely earthquake weather right now.
Meanwhile, scientists at the USGS – the people who have spent most of their lives studying earthquakes – disagree:
There is no such thing as “earthquake weather”. Statistically, there is approximately an equal distribution of earthquakes in cold weather, hot weather, rainy weather, etc. Very large low-pressure changes associated with major storm systems (typhoons, hurricanes, etc) are known to trigger episodes of fault slip (slow earthquakes) in the Earth’s crust and may also play a role in triggering some damaging earthquakes. However, the numbers are small and are not statistically significant.
And while both are pretty compelling takes on if there is indeed such a thing as earthquake weather, the USGS seems just slightly more qualified on the matter. But, be sure to like Monica’s “earthquake weather” post anyway – as she’ll probably start vaguebooking if it doesn’t get enough attention.
