Extraordinary weather phenomenon: animal rains

Of the Pisces which fall from the sky by the thousands, earthworms which land on rooftops, or birds crashing massively on the ground: the rains of animals are among the strangest phenomena on the planet. Since the dawn of time, in ancient Egypt as in the Middle Ages, historical writings bear witness to these events that look like the end of the world. In Asia, Africa, Australia, the United States, South America, but also in Europe, rains of living or dead animals are regularly reported.

Among the most spectacular animal rains recorded since the beginning of the 2000s, we can cite:

• the 10,000 bats fallen from the sky in Australian Queensland in January 2011;
• a gigantic rain of worms on the participants of an outdoor conference in Louisiana (USA) in January 2007;
• a massive rain of frogs in Hungary in June 2010;
• 5,000 birds found dead during New Year’s Eve 2010-2011 in Arkansas (USA);
• a shower of fish in the town of Lorrain on the island of La Martinique in August 2012;
• a shower of 75 small fish in a garden in Scotland in August 2016;
• and most recently a rain of live fish in Telengana, India in July 2022.

But the most amazing event remains the landing of a 60 cm leopard shark still alive on a golf course in California in October 2012: he was able to be saved and released into the open sea.

Eddy phenomena at the origin of animal rains

Animal rains are caused by violent whirlwind phenomena: a tornado or one Dust Devil (dust devil) on earth, or a waterspout on the sea or a lake. These whirlpools, on land or on water, are capable of carrying living beings to altitude before dropping them several kilometers further.

Usually there is only one species animal in these rains of living beings, often very light animals: frogs, small fish, bats, birds, grasshoppers, crabs, snakes, worms, jellyfish, etc. These animals sometimes come back intact and very much alive, but can also be found dead and even completely shredded.

But these vortex phenomena are sometimes capable of carrying heavier beings: cows in particular, in the case of powerful tornadoes in the United States. The case of the Californian shark found on a golf course can just as easily be attributed to a waterspout, as to a bird large pelican or eagle type, having dropped it because it was too heavy.

Could this type of phenomenon concern human beings? Yes, tornadoes and the most powerful Dust Devils are capable of carrying away human beings, which unfortunately sometimes happens in the United States, with an often fatal outcome. But several cases of young children (1 or 2 years old) falling alive, without too many injuries, have been reported in recent years during the passage of tornadoes.

Animals are sometimes carried so high that they fall frozen

Apart from surface fish or jellyfish swept away by a waterspout and thrown hundreds of meters or even kilometers away, the most frequent case is that of birds: the whirlpool crosses the trajectory of a particular species migrating, hence the fact that we then find hundreds or thousands of similar birds on the ground. There is even evidence of the meeting of these two phenomena (migration of birds or swarm of bats) and tornado recorded on radars weather report.

Even more astonishing, it happens that animals fall from the sky frozen, sometimes completely covered with ice, which would tend to show that some can be sucked up to very high altitude in the sky. It also happens that tornadoes and waterspouts completely dry out a pond, before releasing the water and its inhabitants (batrachians and others), further, in the form of animal rain, with therefore water in addition to living beings!