![Waterspouts near St. Thomas. [CREDIT: Jan Havelka - OK1NU]](http://scienceline.org/_s/files/2006/09/waterspouts.jpg)
physics | environment
It’s Raining Fish
Unusual objects sometimes fall from the sky, courtesy of waterspouts.
Just before last New Year’s Eve, Carl and Kathy Hennige of Folsom, California e-mailed their local newspaper to report some strange weather. It was raining fish.
Although it may sound like some sort of mythical event, the Henniges weren’t telling tales. Neither were people in Manna, India, who reported seeing live, pencil-sized fish falling from the sky in July. It can happen, say scientists. The culprit: waterspouts.
Waterspouts, which are essentially tornadoes over water, form when cold air moves over warm water. They churn at speeds up to 200 miles an hour, but dissipate when rain begins to fall from their host cloud. Depending on how fast the winds are whipping, anything that is within about one yard of the surface of the water, including sailboats or fish of different sizes, can be lifted into the air, says Nilton Renno, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Michigan.
A waterspout can sometimes successfully suck small objects like fish out of the water and all the way up into the cloud. Even if the waterspout stops spinning, the fish in the cloud can be carried over land, buffeted up and down and around with the cloud’s winds until its currents no longer keep the flying fish in the atmosphere. It’s like the fish are swimming in the cloud, says Renno. Depending on how far they travel and how high they are taken into the atmosphere, the fish are sometimes dead by the time they rain down. People as far as 100 miles inland have experienced raining fish, he explains.
Fish can also be sucked up from rivers. The Henniges’ condo is just one mile above Lake Natoma and the Nimbus fish hatchery, where they think the fish came from. Carl Hennige writes in an e-mail that there was “an enormous windstorm” just before the fish fell.
Raining fish is not a common weather phenomenon. Fewer than 10 occurrences have been reported in the past year, according to a news search, so local five-day forecasts probably won’t include fish showers. Still, people have reported such events for centuries.
In the early 1900s, Charles Fort, a collector of stories of odd weather happenings, theorized that there was an ocean orbiting the earth that occasionally dropped its creatures onto the planet, writes author Richard Cerveny in his book, Freaks of the Storm.
Now that scientists have advanced technology like Doppler radar, they are less reliant on personal accounts. Fewer people are asked to describe the odd objects they see falling from the sky, says Cerveny, who is also a professor of weather and climate at Arizona State University. Also, people are less likely to report any strange occurrences now than they were 100 years ago. Cerveny explains that today, logical explanations through science are more readily available, so there is less mysticism behind strange weather phenomena. “They tend to sound more kooky now if they report it,” he says. Even though fewer personal accounts of strange weather have not necessarily hurt meteorology, “maybe it has taken away some of the fun of it,” says Cerveny.
Stories of raining fish, frogs or even turtles are an effective teaching tool for Cerveny when he lectures or gives presentations. “Everybody in that kind of a setting loves to hear about odd and unusual weather,” he says. Sometimes after a presentation people pull Cerveny aside, saying, “Well, when I was a kid…”
So keep an eye out, because next time the clouds open up, it may be more than raindrops that keep falling on your head.
September 18th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
What an interesting article, and beautifully written! I had no idea there were such things are water sprouts! Way to go, Susan!!!
September 18th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
This makes obsolete the saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs!” Another well-written article by a soon-to-be-famous environmental writer!
September 19th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Nice article, almost as good as the recent Dental Detectives by famed writer Julie Leibach.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:07 am
Obviously I know Mr. Stephens, Susan ;)
September 23rd, 2006 at 4:29 pm
“Raining fish is not a common weather phenomenon.” um…
May 28th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
It may be totally unrelated to waterspouts, but how far above a body of water have fish been dropped and survived the fall?
June 12th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I’ve heard of this before and it is quite interesting. I’ve also heard of a jelly-like substance falling during heavy rains. Apparently it is the result of a very dry moss mixing with the water. Go figure.
July 28th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Thanks for the explanation! When I was a little girl, I lived for about a year in a small town called Port Aransas, TX (on the Gulf of Mexico, near Corpus Christie). I remember it raining “little fishies” several times — in fact I used to put my bucket outside when in rained in hopes of getting a few. Also the little depression in the yard would fill with water and become a pond .. complete with fishes (which would grow and eventually die as the water evaporated!) When I moved up North and out West and tried to tell about this in my classes in school, I was punished for being a liar!!! No one believed me! So .. at long last .. VINDICATION!! haha!
November 25th, 2007 at 2:21 am
I was watching a movie and they had mentiond some about it raining fish and something with haveing to do with clouds and I had to look it up. I did not belive it, untill now. This is the beauty of nature. Great story!!!
January 14th, 2008 at 5:17 am
the article is convincing on its presentation and organization of ideas, but the fact is not adult fishes,frogs or turtle are blown to the atmosphere but the eggs of such species.modern technology states that because of the low density of this eggs, they are easily blown away to the sky.please check first the facts before you expose it to the public
April 17th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I heard about raining fish but I don’t know how it happens. So now thanks for this information.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I am very happy to have found this site. I have been ridiculed and laughed at most of my life when ever I bring up the fact that I have seen this occur. It was when I was a young kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old. I was on the covered front porch with my Grandpa in Ft.Smith, Arkansas in about 1959 or so. We both saw them coming dowm, but he didn’t seem to think it was so unusual. We were located about 3 miles from the Arkansaas River. These were little tiny fish and mixed with tiny frogs. (NOT TADPOLES).The cats had a field day! But there were many hundreds of both in my Grandfather’s yard , A neighbor, about an eighth mile down the road did not get any! I often wondered about a waterspout as the answer, but wonder why ONLY this particular fish and frogs and nothing else? Why not some debris? All the fish were dead upon impact, but many of the frogs were still hopping!
July 14th, 2008 at 1:41 am
ammaging
July 20th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Just watching the movie “NEXT” and Nicholas Cage brought this subject up. so…I thought I’d look this up for factual reasons and a bet with my husband. Well it makes perfect sense to me now!
Just to be able to see the different reasons for things and having the technology (humbly) to do so… Is there a scripture in the Bible about this????
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
That’s so funny - I am watching the movie “Next” right now and just passed that scene where Nicolas Cage brings up this subject.
Haha..so it’s true! Great to see this explained scientifically.