Earthquake rattles Western WA early on Christmas Eve

A 4.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Olympic Peninsula on Sunday at 7:14 a.m. and it lightly shook homes from Victoria to Tacoma, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which gathered reports from a few hundred people, dubbed citizen scientists. So far, there’s been no reports of damage and authorities don’t expect any.

The epicenter was just west of the small town of Quilcene, Washington.

Back in October, a 4.3 magnitude earthquake hit south of Port Townsend in Scow Bay, between Indian and Marrowstone islands.

Before these two, the last time Washington state had a 4.0 magnitude earthquake was in 2019, when a 4.6 earthquake hit near Monroe.

Sunday’s quake was detected by ShakeAlert, a notification system intended to deliver alerts directly to smartphones, but it wasn’t severe enough to trigger an alert.