The rain of fish is an unusual but real event characterized precisely because fish fall or rain from the sky as if it were rain . This bizarre event occurs, according to experts, because a small tornado normally sucks small fish from a river, transports them to a stormy cloud and finally, with the storm, the fish are discharged along with large rains.
Thus, storms generate water eddies in which all the animals within them are trapped by a tornado effect that lifts the animals into the sky. Then, how could it be otherwise, the animals -in this case fish- end up falling as if it were an unusual rain (waterspout). Some fish do not survive the impact, but most do. It is also possible for fish to freeze if they have gone through a phase with sub-zero temperatures.
Although the rain of fish is the best known, there have been cases of ‘rain of frogs’ or even ‘rain of prawns’, to the surprise of passers-by. For example, in the city of Alicante (Spain) in 2007, there was a rain of frogs. Other Unusual Rains: Scientific American published a report of a snake shower in Memphis in 1877; Thousands of frogs fell from the sky in Leicester, Massachusetts (USA) in 1953 …
Annual fish rain
One of the most striking cases occurs in the town of Yoro (Honduras). According to popular culture, Yoro has ‘suffered’ a rain of fish every year for more than a century, usually between the months of May and July. After lightning, thunder and wind, a curious shower of fish takes place for a couple of hours. The neighbors have already become accustomed to the fact that, once it ceases, they religiously collect all the fish they can and take advantage of to cook and taste them at home.
A similar phenomenon also occurs in Sri Lanka in which citizens have been ‘bombarded’ with more than 50 kilos of fish. In the May 2014 storm, for example, villagers explained that the fish were between 5 and 8 centimeters long and that since they were still alive, they were put into buckets of water to be eaten later.
Because these rains of animals have occurred in various areas of the globe throughout history and are quite unusual events, they have given rise to many myths and legends about animals fallen from the sky.
