5 New Madrid Quakes Swarm Monday-Largest in Missouri Bootheel

There has been a sudden uptick of quakes in the New Madrid Seismic Zone with a mini-swarm of 5 quakes confirmed by the USGS Monday with the largest of those 5 in the Missouri boot heel.

The USGS earthquake site showed 5 measurable tremors along the New Madrid Fault  Monday, October 13, 2025

None of these 5 earthquakes was anything to worry about, but the largest was the tremor in the Missouri boot heel region across the river on the Tennessee side measuring a 2.4 on the Richter Scale. But, it's when you look at the past 5 days of earthquake activity in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas that you see there have been 9 earthquakes in just the past 5 days.

What are the chances that these small quakes are a foreshock for a major New Madrid event?

This is the question that I get all the time when I share New Madrid quake activity. The USGS will tell you that there's no way to know a foreshock is a foreshock until a major quake happens. That means you should not lose sleep about a minor uptick in New Madrid quake activity, but it's always wise to pay attention to what the Earth is doing under your feet. More than likely this is just a typical sudden jump in earthquake activity and nothing out of the ordinary, but if you live in southern Missouri especially, you should always be prepared for a major quake which will someday happen.