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Westford residents are dishing on Facebook about a series of loud booms being heard around town.
No one knows for sure what’s causing them, but some people have suggested they’re frost quakes.
WBZ Meteorologist and Executive Weather Producer Terry Eliasen hasn’t heard the booms, but said he doesn’t doubt they’re happening.
These mini earth quakes occur when water seeps into the ground. When temperatures drop, as they have this week, the water freezes and causes the land to pull apart and crack causing the sound of a boom, he said.
“I can’t say for sure that it’s a frost quake, but it certainly is possible,” Eliasen said, noting the amount of rainfall the region has had in recent months.
“We had a lot of rain in the fall and early winter and we finally reached that critical level where the temperatures got cold enough to freeze that water down below ground level. That critical water temperature was reached, water froze and everything just started seismically happening underground.”
Some Facebook posters joked that it was aliens from outer space causing the booms. But residents on Powers, Concord and Tadmuck roads, Steeple Chase
“Impressive explosion just now,” wrote one resident. “I’m in Westford center, sounds like it’s towards [Interstate] 495…”
Eliasen is a lifelong resident of Westford and runs the WestfordWeb page where he forecasts the weather for local residents.
