I’ll be honest: This was not on my heat wave bingo card. I expected cars overheating, people overheating, and perhaps even rolling brownouts striking the electrical grid. But in a now viral video, a car in Missouri was launched skyward when the road buckled beneath its bumper. The heat wave caused very real waves, in the pavement.

I grew up in snowy Vermont, so I am used to “frost heaves.” These are bumps formed in paved roads from repeated freezing and thawing. But they form over multiple winters, never exploding fast enough to launch a car.

That said, a road buckled by heat is subject to a similar phenomenon. The extreme temperatures make the road surface and ground beneath expand at different rates. If the road can’t flex enough, it breaks. In the case of the Missouri road, it can explode upward like a mini earthquake. Check out the video below:

States are far north as Minnesota are preparing for more roads buckling during the weeklong heat wave meteorologists predict. Many have road crews standing by to patch up buckled roads. Obviously, keep your eyes peeled if you’re driving around out there. Vigilance is important for road safety, but even more so in extreme weather.