Raining animals

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Tornadoes are often the scientific explanation for raining animals.
Tornadoes are often the scientific explanation for raining animals.

Raining animals is a relatively rare meteorological phenomenon, although occurrences have been reported from many countries throughout history. One hypothesis that has been furthered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds travelling over water sometimes pick up debris such as fish or frogs, and carry them for up to several miles.[1] However, this primary aspect of the phenomenon has never been witnessed or scientificaly tested.

The animals most likely to drop from the sky in a rainfall are fish and frogs, with birds coming third. Sometimes the animals survive the fall, especially fish, suggesting a small time gap between the extraction and the actual drop. Several witnesses of raining frogs describe the animals as startled, though healthy, and exhibiting relatively normal behavior shortly after the event. In some incidents, however, the animals are frozen to death or even completely encased in ice. These occurrences may be evidence for the transport of the victims to high altitudes, where the temperature is below zero, and they show how powerful meteorological forces can be. The potential violence of this phenomenon is shown by examples where the product of the rain is not intact animals, but shredded body parts. Some cases are caused just after storms having strong winds especially during tornadoes. However, there have been numerous cases in which rainfalls of animals have occurred in fair weather and in the absence of strong winds or waterspouts.

Contents

[edit] Occurrences

The following list is a selection of examples, focusing mainly on the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The citations for this listing can be found on the section "References".

[edit] Fish

1555 engraving of rain of fish
1555 engraving of rain of fish

[edit] Frogs and toads

[edit] Others

[edit] See also

[edit] External references

[edit] Bibliography