Sudden Swarm of 9 New Madrid Fault Quakes in Just a Few Days

I am terrible at predicting things, but amazingly got this one right. It's been confirmed there has been a sudden swarm of 9 New Madrid Fault quakes in just a few days right after I mentioned that that seismic area seemed to be waking up.

It was just yesterday that I shared the April earthquake total along the New Madrid Fault in southern Missouri. I asked the question "Is the New Madrid Fault Waking Up?" after a slow start to the year.

Over the past few days, there have now been 9 earthquakes attributed to the New Madrid Fault according to the USGS.

It's the cluster located just to the west of New Madrid, Missouri itself that I find interesting. The largest was a magnitude 2.8 quake that happened on May 1. These 6 quakes all occurred in just the past couple of days. 

I'm not trying to insinuate that this mini-swarm of earthquakes is leading up to a bigger event, but I think a sudden uptick of activity along the fault zone in southern Missouri bears paying attention to. It's a reminder that we live in a state where we must constantly be earthquake-aware and have an emergency plan if the big one were ever to strike. The odds say it could happen in our lifetime.