Louder Than You Think

You can hear the Falls. But you can also feel them.

Along with the roar you can hear, Niagara makes infrasound — very low vibrations, too deep for human ears to fully pick up. It's less like a sound and more like a pressure. Scientists using sensitive instruments have recorded the Falls' low rumble from well beyond where you can hear it.

At the brink, the noise regularly goes past 90 decibels — about as loud as a lawnmower running right beside you, without ever stopping. Except it isn't a lawnmower. It's thousands of cubic metres of water every second crashing to the bottom of a 57-metre drop.

As for the name — "Niagara" may come from an Indigenous word recorded on maps as early as 1641 as Onguiaahra, often translated as "thunder of waters" or "the strait". If that translation is right, the Falls were named for their sound long before Europeans arrived.

The sound hasn't changed. It's still sending out the same signal it always has — to scientists, and to anyone standing close enough to feel it in their chest.