Look! Up in the Sky, It's a Bird, It's a Plane...

We all recognize that phrase as the long-established introduction for Superman. This past Wednesday, though, in Texarkana, TX, it wasn't Superman everyone was seeing. Instead, it was fish...small white bass, to be exact...and they were falling from the sky. "Animal rain" is what it's called.

This real weather phenomenon happens when small animals get swept up in waterspouts or updrafts, and then fall to Earth with raindrops. Reported rains of bats, fish, snakes, birds, and frogs stretch back for centuries.

The phenomena most associated with animal rain are waterspouts, although many meteorologists are skeptical that waterspouts can actually cause animal rain. Waterspouts form as violent storm clouds swirl above a large body of water. These clouds form a tornado-like whirlwind (called a vortex) that dips into an ocean, lake or pond. Waterspouts can spin up to 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), and may pull up small objects in their funnel, like water pebbles and small aquatic animals. It's important to remember that a waterspout is not a swirling column of water. The water in a waterspout is the result of condensation, not liquid "sucked up" from a body of water.

Strong winds (called updrafts) may also pull animals into their swirling vortices. Updrafts can sweep up much larger animals than waterspouts, such as traveling birds and bats, as well as frogs, snakes and insects.

As waterspouts and updrafts move over land, they lose their swirling energy, and the storm clouds that formed the waterspouts are forced to dump their heavy loads. The heaviest objects are dumped first, and the lightest objects (usually simple raindrops) are dumped last. This explains why reports of animal rain usually describe only one type of animal raining down. A cloud will dump all objects of a similar weight at the same time--fish (heavy), followed by insects (lighter), followed by rain (lightest), for example.

In reporting about the bizarre phenomenon, the official Facebook page of the City of Texarkana said, "2021 is pulling out all the tricks, including raining fish."

Many local residents took to social media to document the dead fish lying on roads and in their backyards. Some were amused. One person commented, "There are probably a lot of happy stray cats" on one such post, while another said, "People thought I was crazy about 20 years ago when I told them it rained frogs at my hog farm. I stood there dumbfounded, looking at my concrete walkways being covered by frogs. I was wondering if the world was coming to an end."

Other people were just worried about the health and hygiene issues that the dead aquatic animals might cause if clean-up operations weren't done in a timely manner.

Animal rain previously has been reported in places like California and northwestern Serbia.