Cloudy with a Chance of Fish
In a world awash with AI forgeries, the odd phenomenon of “fish rain” seems like another AI hoax: tiny aquatic creatures literally falling from the sky. Far from legend, scientists and eyewitnesses have confirmed rare but real instances across the globe.
Notable Events
1) Yoro, Honduras (Lluvia de Peces): For over a century, heavy rains in Yoro deliver thousands of small fish onto muddy streets, likely lifted by waterspouts during tropical storms.
2) Lajamanu, Australia (2023): After a January storm, spangled perch blanketed the red outback. Meteorologists attributed this to a waterspout over a nearby river.
3) Yasuj, Iran (2024): Viral videos showed live fish splattering roads amid a sudden downpour, later verified by local weather reports.
The Science: Waterspouts in Action
The leading scientific explanation is simple yet spectacular: waterspouts. These are tornado‑like vortices that form over warm bodies of water including lakes, rivers, or coastal shallows, under the right atmospheric conditions. Like giant vacuums, they can suck up small fish, tadpoles, frogs, and even turtles. Once the vortex weakens inland, its airborne cargo falls back to earth, creating the illusion of fish or amphibians raining from the sky.
Key factors for such “animal rain” include:
1. Warm water temperatures (fueling the updraft)
2. High humidity and wind shear (forming the vortex)
3. Proximity to a water source (providing the liftable creatures)
Because waterspouts are localized and short‑lived, these events remain exceedingly rare—and therefore all the more mesmerizing.
Alternative Explanations
Not every fish shower requires a waterspout. In a December 2021 incident in Texarkana, Texas, dozens of fish were found on the ground after a storm. Biologists suggested a more mundane culprit: fish‑eating birds. Pelicans and terns sometimes drop or regurgitate prey when startled mid‑flight, scattering fish across roads or fields. The telltale signs, beaten or half‑eaten fish, help distinguish bird‑dropping events from waterspout deposits.
Why Only One Species?
Interestingly, reports almost always document a single species falling at once. Scientists believe that this consistency supports both the waterspout and bird theories: a vortex scoops fish from the same school, or a bird disgorges its single-species catch. Had powerful winds lofted mixed flotsam from the shoreline, we’d expect a more diverse array of creatures. (Although I am not sure if I am convinced by this one-species explanation....)
Whatever the truth may be, these rare meteorological quirks remind us that nature never ceases to amaze us.
Sources:
* Livemint: Viral video of fish rain in Iran https://www.livemint.com/.../viral-video-fish-rain-in...
* HowStuffWorks: Waterspouts and animal rain https://science.howstuffworks.com/.../fish-rain-from-sky...
* GOOD: Fish falling in Lajamanu, Australia https://www.good.is/bizarre-video-shows-fish-falling-from...
* Caterpickles/Atlas Obscura: Lluvia de Peces in Honduras https://caterpickles.com/.../update-to-a-past.../...