Sunday morning earthquake rumbles through Lakes Region

LACONIA — With clocks “falling back” an hour at the end of Daylight Savings Time, Saturday night promised long and restful sleep for Lakes Region residents. Delivering a 2.3-magnitude earthquake early Sunday morning, however, Mother Nature had a different idea in store.

“My husband and I both shot up in bed,” said Rachael Rollins of Laconia. “There was this big boom — I thought the furnace had exploded or something. I even went out on the deck in my pajamas to make sure everything was still there.”   

In social media posts, residents from Center Harbor to Alton to Bristol reported hearing or feeling the shake, which had an epicenter in Sanbornton along the western shores of Lake Winnisquam, according to the United States Geological Survey.

USGS’s “Did You Feel It?” reporting system shows that residents as far away as Concord, and perhaps even some in Massachusetts, experienced the quake, though most reports came from Laconia, Meredith, Gilford and Sanbornton.

“I didn’t know it was an earthquake at first,” said Susie Normandin of Gilford. “It sounded like thunder, but it kept going for much longer than thunder, and then I felt the shake.” She made sure to check the time — 4:24 a.m. — anticipating others might be chatting about the noise later that day, whatever it turned out to be. 

This quake marked the third felt by the Lakes Region this year, after another 2.3 quake in Sanbornton in January and another of 2.2 magnitude in Wolfeboro in May. There have been nine earthquakes in the state this year, the largest, in Gorham, measuring in at 2.9 on the scale.

Geologists aren’t certain what causes earthquakes in New Hampshire: a memo from the state Department of Environmental Services notes that none of New Hampshire’s earthquakes “can be directly correlated to any structural feature on the surface such as a fault.”

Granite State seismic activity tends to cluster around the central part of the state, as can be seen in a map from the Northeast States Emergency Consortium.

The most significant earthquakes in the state’s history came in 1638 and in 1940, hitting at 6.5 and 5.6 on the Richter scale, respectively. In recent memory, a 4.7-magnitude quake hit just west of Laconia in 1982 without any major damage or injuries. According to USGS, there have been 65 earthquakes of 2.1 magnitude or higher in New Hampshire since 1638.

Even though scientists don’t have a clear understanding of why there are earthquakes in the area, and despite New Hampshire’s distance from major fault lines, some residents still see them as a semi-regular occurrence. 

“The last three houses we’ve lived in [in the Lakes Region], we’ve experienced one and had almost identical experiences every time,” Rollins said. 

When asked if she fell back asleep after the pre-dawn disturbance, Rollins replied, “Eventually.”