Fish fall from the sky in East Texas

[dvernb]

The East Texas city of Texarkana experienced a rare weather event to close out the year: It rained fish.

The phenomenon, known as “animal rain,” occurred Wednesday in the city, where officials declared in a Facebook post that 2021 “is pulling out all of the tricks…including raining fish.”

“And no, this isn’t a joke,” the post continued.

The city asked residents who witnessed the strange event for their fish photos — some provided them in a lengthy comment thread, along with notes of disbelief — and offered a quick primer on the strange event.

As an article in the Library of Congress explains, scientists believe tornadic waterspouts or updrafts to be responsible for fish and small animal falls that have been observed — but not thoroughly documented — around the planet for centuries.

A tornado could descend toward the water’s surface, sucking up objects and small animals into its vortex and raining them down elsewhere. A powerful thunderstorm’s wind currents could do something similar, another theory proposes.

In Kansas City, Mo., it rained frogs in 1873. In Japan, tadpoles rained down in 2009. In Australia, it was spangled perch in 2010.

In Texarkana, James Audirsch said he heard a thunderclap when he and co-worker Brad Pratt opened the car dealership’s doors.

“It was raining real hard and a fish hit the ground,” Audirsch told NBC affiliate KTAL. “I said, ‘it’s raining fish.’ Brad was like, ‘no it’s not.’ I was like, ‘no it really is.’ And fish were dropping, here and everywhere.”

What appeared to be young white bass measuring less than half a foot could be seen scattered around the dealership’s parking lot, the station reported. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fish-fell-sky-east-texas-rcna10565

 

[Merlin]

I’ve seen fish rain and frogs rain before. It’s rare but happens more than will ever be documented.

I was a long haired, long bearded dude workin on a dairy farm driving down a country road in my pick-up when little frogs started rainin from the sky. It was a pretty weird thing to see myself although other guys had told their stories before. I stopped and watched to be sure it wasn’t just some flashback from last night. It lasted a couple of minutes and left hundreds of little frogs jumping around everywhere. Yes they were alive. No hallucination. Like I said it was freakin weird. A few years later I was drivin the same pick-up down another not so remote road when little fish rained from the sky and they were still flopping around too. There was a fish hatchery a few miles away so we figured that’s where these little trouts came from. I had a witness this time. My partner saw it too and even though we both were one-toke-over-the-line we could corroborate each other’s testimony.

So I know it’s strange but here in the Deep South nothin is ever really too strange to be true.