Earthquake near Signal Hill, CA

A magnitude 3.2 earthquake was recorded in Signal Hill, CA, at 12:44 am PDT on 9 October 2026 (07:44 UTC). 867 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.

At this magnitude and depth, people at rest would likely notice it out to about 44 km (27 mi) from the epicentre. Estimated from magnitude, depth and distance with the intensity equation USGS Did You Feel It? uses; felt reports, where there are any, are the measurement.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Long Beach, Lakewood, Rossmoor, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos, Carson.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 1,800 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 6.7 180,000× the energy of this one
2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 8,200× the energy of this one
3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 5,800× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 3.2 about 1,800 lb of TNT
5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 1.9× 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 4.5 on 2020-09-19 — about 110 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 12 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 6.4 The 1933 Long Beach, California Earthquake · 24 km SE of this epicentre Mar 11, 1933
2. 5.9 The 1987 Whittier Narrows, California Earthquake · 31 km NNE of this epicentre Oct 1, 1987
3. 5.4 5km S of Chino Hills, CA · 42 km ENE of this epicentre Jul 29, 2008
4. 5.3 2 km SSW of Santa Monica, California · 38 km NW of this epicentre Aug 4, 1927
5. 5.3 7km W of Newport Beach, CA · 25 km SE of this epicentre Mar 11, 1933

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 33.7917, -118.1798. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

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

Aftershocks so far

No further earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 08:55 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.