For decades, residents of the southwestern state have been concerned a huge earthquake, known as the Big One, is on its way.
Now today, there have been five relatively strong tremors which could suggest that a powerful quake is coming to devastate California.
The biggest of the lot was a 3.9 magnitude tremor which struck just off the coast of San Clemente Island.
The next biggest was a 2.5 tremor which rocked Planada in central California.
These were accompanied by smaller quakes which has led some locals to believe that a powerful earthquake is on its way.
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One local wrote on Twitter: “California, stop with the earthquakes.”
Another added: “More seismic activity is heating up in Southern CA again so far.”
This follows on from October 21 where more than 40 earthquakes hit California in one day.
California sits on top of the potentially deadly San Andreas Fault, a chasm between two massive plates of the Earth’s crust that extends hundreds of miles across California.
Also, beneath California, the Pacific and North American tectonic plates are moving northward – although the former is moving quicker leading to a build up of tension.
A powerful earthquake in 1857 released some of this pressure, but a lot more needs to be released, and Robert Graves, a research geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS), suggests the Big One could be overdue by ten years.
He told Raw Story: “The San Andreas fault in southern California last had a major quake in 1857 (magnitude 7.9).
“Studies that have dated previous major offsets along the fault trace show that there have been about 10 major quakes over the past 1,000-2,000 years… the average time between these quakes is about 100-150 years.”
However, John Bellini, a fellow geophysicist at USGS, moved to calm fears and said that not all smaller quakes are a sign that the Big One is coming.
He said: “We can’t predict or forecast earthquakes.
“Sometimes before a large earthquake you’ll have a foreshock or two, but we don’t know they’re foreshocks until the big one happens.”