Earthquake near Wofford Heights, CA

A magnitude 3.2 earthquake was recorded 5 km (3 mi) ESE of Wofford Heights, CA, at 2:37 am PDT on 6 October 2026 (09:37 UTC). 19 people have reported feeling it to USGS. This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Kernville, Lake Isabella, Weldon, Bodfish, Alta Sierra.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 2,000 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.2 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 170,000× the energy of this one
2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 7,600× the energy of this one
3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 5,400× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 3.2 about 2,000 lb of TNT
5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 2.1× more

Energy from the Gutenberg–Richter relation (log₁₀E = 1.5M + 4.8), rounded to two figures; bar length is magnitude, which is already a logarithm of energy. Magnitudes of past earthquakes from the USGS catalogue.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km since 2016 was M 4.3 on 2024-04-18 — about 46 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 13 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 6.3 The 1946 Walker Pass, California Earthquake · 42 km E of this epicentre Mar 15, 1946
2. 5.6 19km N of Tehachapi, CA · 43 km S of this epicentre Jul 25, 1952
3. 5.6 14km NNW of Tehachapi, CA · 49 km S of this epicentre Jul 31, 1952
4. 5.5 22km N of Tehachapi, CA · 40 km S of this epicentre Jul 25, 1952
5. 5.4 14km NW of Inyokern, CA · 43 km E of this epicentre Mar 15, 1946

Since 2016: the QuakeIndex catalogue (US, M1.5+), built from the USGS FDSN event service. Before 2016: USGS ComCat, M5+ from 1900. Distances are between epicentres. This is the record, not a forecast.

Where

Epicentre 35.6857, -118.4120. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

Places and coordinates from the US Census Bureau Gazetteer (2024). Distances are from the epicentre.

Aftershocks so far

1 earthquake has been recorded within 50 km since this one.

1. 1.0 5 km ESE of Wofford Heights, CA 10:20 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 11:12 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

Revisions

USGS refines a solution as more stations report. Every change we have seen is listed here.

On USGS

• The official USGS event page — the source of record for every value above
• Did you feel it? Report it to USGS — reports go to USGS, not to us
• ShakeMap for this event, when USGS has produced one

QuakeIndex does not issue warnings. For earthquake early warning see ShakeAlert.