2nd Strongest New Madrid, Missouri Quake of 2025 Just Shook Here

The ground beneath us in Missouri has the potential to be a traitor and this is a great example. One of 2025's strongest New Madrid quakes just happened Friday in an innocent-looking farm field and no one even noticed.

As I was doing my daily duty of checking out the USGS earthquake map, I noticed a larger than usual circle in the southeast Missouri/western Tennessee area. While it ranks as the 2nd largest New Madrid, Missouri region quake of 2025 so far, there are multiple reasons why no one felt it.

Let's start with the most obvious. A 2.7 quake is a magnitude that is rarely felt even if it happened right under your Missouri home. Second, it happened at 3:44am which is earlier than even my farmer friends normally wake up. Finally, the epicenter was literally in a farm field in the middle of nowhere.

It's been a rather quiet year along the New Madrid Fault in 2025 with the largest quake being a 2.8 magnitude tremor that happened on March 20, 2025. I'll confess that the lack of activity makes me nervous as this could mean a buildup of energy along that fault line which could result in a much more significant event sooner rather than later. The good news is I am not a seismologist for the USGS and can't predict earthquakes, but neither can the USGS either.

This minor yet noticeable quake early Friday morning is just another reminder to remain quake-aware and have a plan should the New Madrid Fault decide to ruin our day in the future.