Raining animals
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Raining animals is a relatively common meteorological phenomenon, with occurrences reported from many countries throughout history. The animals most likely to drop from the sky in a rainfall are fish and frogs, with several types of birds coming second. Sometimes the animals survive the fall, notoriously fishes, 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 enclosed in blocks of 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 pieces.
Scientific explanation
Raining animals were first described by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century and ever since caused astonishment and perplexity. Before the advent of modern science, supernatural explanations, from God to extraterrestrial entities, were invoked to explain the phenomenon.
The scientific explanation involves a combination of geographic circumstance and meteorological chance. During a storm, wind may sweep the earth's surface at great speed, creating whirlwinds or even small tornadoes that can catch debris on the surface. The rain of water-borne animals such as amphibians or fishes is explained with the passage of such whirlwinds over lakes or rivers forming waterspouts; land animals are captured directly from the surface and birds can be taken while in flight. Once trapped in the winds, the animals can travel over long distances or be transported to the higher parts of the troposphere or even the stratosphere before being dropped in the form of rain.
Raining animals in culture
Probably the most common reference of this phenomenon in culture is the expression raining cats and dogs that describes copious rains. This sentence appeared first in Jonathan Swift’s work A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation published in 1738, but its origin is unknown. One explanation suggests that the expression is a distortion of the old French word catadoupe (meaning waterfall or cataract). Another theory is that the term originated in the Middle Ages, when dead cats and dogs left in the street were flushed away during heavy rains.
In the final scene of Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 film Magnolia thousands of frogs fall from the sky. Historical rains of animals are among the phenomena chronicled within the works of Charles Fort.
Some groups of Australian aborigines and Native Americans share the belief that raining frogs is a sign of incoming rain.
Occurrences
The following list is a selection of examples, focusing on the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
Fish
- Cambridge, Maryland, 1828
- Rahway, New Jersey, November 13 1833
- Aberdare, Glamorganshire, Wales, 1841
- Mountain Ash, Glamorganshire, Wales, February 9, 1859
- Olneyville, Rhode Island, May 15, 1900
- Tiller’s Ferry, South Carolina, June 1901 (catfish)
- Marksville, Louisiana, October 23, 1947
- Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, August 8 2000
- Wiltshire, May 2001
- Knighton, Powys, Wales, August 18 2004
Frogs and toads
- Trowbridge, Wiltshire, June 16 1939
- Leicester, Massachusetts, September 7 1953
- Llanddewi Brefi, Ceredigion (Cardiganshire), Wales, 1996
- Villa Angel Flores, Mexico, June 1997
- Croydon, London, March 1998
- Odžaci, Serbia, July 3 2005
Others
- An unidentified animal fell in California ripped to tiny pieces of meat on August 1 1869; a similar incident was reported in Bath County, Kentucky in 1876
- Jellyfish fell from the sky in Bath in 1894
- Assorted dead birds, including ducks, woodpeckers and canaries in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, November 1896
- A turtle enclosed in ice dropped from the sky in Vicksburg, USA in 1930
See also
External references
- Raining cats and dogs
- Raining animals in the British Isles
- BBC report on raining fish
- BBC Wiltshire report on raining animals
- BBC Bristol
- BBC Overview
- A review on the American perspective
- Fish rain
- Fish rain
- Fish rain
Bibliography
- The Fortean Times.el:Βροχή ζώων