By Anupum Pant
Raining cats and dogs is a bit unlikely, but there is nothing wrong about saying, “it is raining frogs and fish”. It happens more often than you think. So, don’t be alarmed if one day you wake up and find fish on your terrace.
When we talk about rain, the one place in India which stands out is Kerala. As we’ve seen in a previous post that Kerala has seen red rains, it has also seen raining fish. This isn’t a joke. On February 12, 2008, people actually saw fish falling down from the sky.
Not just that. I’ve seen reports of water birds, tomatoes, coal, and even a boats falling from the sky.
Raining Animals
After a few moments of awe, when you look at the occurrence of raining animals with the science microscope, you’ll find that it is not something very extraordinary. In fact, there is a whole Wikipedia page on raining animals. It turns out, several places around the world have experienced raining frogs, fish, spiders, worms etc. And as always, science has an explanation for it.
How does it happen?
Water Sprouts: When tornadoes move on land, they can pick up trucks, houses, trees and what not. They suck up several things from the ground and cause total destruction along the path they travel. But, when such storms travel on water, they suck up water, fish and of course, frogs.
This experiment proves how a low pressure can pick up things. – [Experiment]
These things can stay up with the storm for a long time. And eventually when the storm comes on land and weakens the animals may drop down with rain. As a result, we see fish and frogs raining from the heavens.
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