Largest Earthquake Ever Felt In New York State

When you think of earthquakes, you think of California, but earlier this week it was New Yorkers who felt the ground moving beneath their feet.

According to officials with the United States Geological Survey department, a magnitude 1.7 earthquake was recorded on Tuesday near Queens.

While it is always scary when an earthquake happens, a 1.7 on the Richter scale is not that bad.

This is not the first time that a measurable earthquake has been felt in New York. In fact, earthquakes happen a lot in New York, but most times they are so small you never feel them.

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Last year, there was a 4.0 earthquake in Ohio that people in Western New York felt for a brief moment.

It turns out 2023 was a pretty active year for earthquakes in New York. Just a couple of months before that 4.0 earthquake happened, a 3.6 earthquake struck New York. The earthquake was centered around Adams Center in Jefferson County, just 10 miles southwest of Watertown.

It was just 9 days ago that another earthquake was reported around the same area. That earthquake was reported around 1:30 am on April 14th. That quake was measured as a magnitude of 2.6 and was recorded just outside of Watertown

Earthquakes are not uncommon in New York as the state does sit on a couple of fault lines. The fault line that runs near Western and Central New York is called the Clarendon-Linden fault system.

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So what was the largest-ever earthquake to hit New York State? That would have been back in 1944 when a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck near the New York-Canadian border, causing damage in Massena.

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