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Fish rain in Houston subdivision

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#2
Syne Offline
I remember seeing this happen decades ago in Florida. Tons of small fish everywhere after a big rain storm.
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#3
Zinjanthropos Online
A waterspout is one of the neatest things to see. On the lake we spend the summer on we get one or two every year. They actually tear up the bottom of the lake and create small floating patches of vegetation and dirt. Navigation hazards and if it wasn't for the gulls sitting on them you might run right into one. Not good for the prop. I would imagine they could lift small fish up into the atmosphere and send them flying.
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#4
C C Offline
Quote:There was a strong north wind blowing Tuesday. The Metzes and their neighbors suspect these fish may have been scooped up from two small ponds in the neighborhood just north of their homes.

Meh. Take more than an ordinary, straight-blowing "strong wind".

http://www.livescience.com/44760-raining-frogs.html

Benjamin Radford: The most likely explanation for how small frogs get up into the sky in the first place is meteorological: a whirlwind, tornado or other natural phenomenon. [Charles] Fort admitted that this is a possibility, but offered several reasons why he doubted that's the true or complete explanation: "It is so easy to say that small frogs that have fallen from the sky had been scooped up by a whirlwind ... but [this explanation offers] no regard for mud, debris from the bottom of a pond, floating vegetation, loose things from the shores — but a precise picking out of the frogs only. ... Also, a pond going up would be quite as interesting as frogs coming down. Whirlwinds we read of over and over — but where and what whirlwind? It seems to me that anybody who had lost a pond would be heard from." For example, Fort argued, one published report of "a fall of small frogs near Birmingham, England, June 30, 1892, is attributed to a specific whirlwind — but not a word as to any special pond that had contributed."

[...] That there are very few eyewitness accounts of frogs and fish being sucked up into the sky during a tornado, whirlwind or storm is hardly mysterious or unexplainable. Anytime winds are powerful enough to suck up fish, frogs, leaves, dirt and detritus, they are powerful enough to be of concern to potential eyewitnesses. In other words, people who would be close enough to a whirlwind or tornado to see the flying amphibians would be more concerned for their own safety (and that of others) to pay much attention to whether or not some frogs are among the stuff being picked up and flown around at high speeds.

The same applies to Fort's apparent surprise that, following frog falls, farmers or others don't come forward to identify which specific pond the frogs came from. How would anyone know? [...] Of course, a wind disturbance need not be a full-fledged tornado to be strong enough to pick up small frogs and fish; smaller, localized versions such as waterspouts and dust devils — which may not be big enough, potentially damaging enough, or near enough to populated areas to be reported in the local news — may do the trick. [...] In 2012, a 2-year-old Indiana girl was lifted into the air during a storm, and, incredibly, carried into the sky and found alive 10 miles away.

https://www.csicop.org/sb/show/fortean_f..._fallacies

Benjamin Radford: After my article was posted at LiveScience.com, famed Fortean writer Loren Coleman challenged my explanation in the comments [...] “How does a tornado explain the finding of a single species in some falls of frogs? Surely, the aerodynamics of the lift might sort for weight, but not for species and genus.”

Coleman’s critique is interesting, and worthy of a brief analysis. The first thing to note, of course, is that per the skeptical dictum of Hyman’s Categorical Imperative, before we try to explain something we should be sure that there is indeed something to explain. In this case Coleman has asserted, without any supporting evidence or documentation, that some falls of frogs contain only “a single species.” If that is not true—it is a mistake, for example, or mere rumor or legend—then we need not spend considerable time trying to explain how that could happen.

But [...] I’m perfectly willing to concede that it’s at least possible that in an unspecified number of frog falls (Two? Ten? Fifty?) only one species of frogs was found. Of course I’d like to know who did the investigations (A scientist? A farmer? A little boy who said he only saw one kind of frog, whose observation was taken at face value?), what their methods were (How big an area did the person survey to determine how many species of frogs were found? A few feet? A few yards? A mile? [...] These questions aside, Coleman treats this as a mysterious and unexplainable fact that could discredit the theory that a whirlwind or tornado caused the frog falls.

Except, of course, there’s an obvious and simple explanation. As I noted, “The most likely answer is that the ponds and rivers that were the source of the frogs only had one species in them to begin with. Unless we know that the waters over which those tornados and whirlwinds travel have multiple species of frogs in them, there doesn’t seem to be much mystery to the fact that only one species may sometimes be found picked up in them.”


~~~~ Hazel nuts or aromatic berries? ~~~~

Weird & Wonderful Irish Facts:

A strange case of food falling from the sky was reported by policemen in Dublin in 1867. The men were forced to take shelter from the ‘tremendous rainfall’ of very small black oranges around half an inch in diameter, seemingly made from wood and with a ‘slight aromatic odour’. An onlooker clarified that they were actually preserved hazelnuts, but how they ended up falling from the sky is a great mystery!

The Gallery of Natural Phenomena:

May 9,1867 --> A mysterious fall of fossilized hazelnuts at Dublin. They fell 'in great quantities and with great force.'

The International Journal of Meteorology - Volume 35, number 349 (PDF):

A significant problem with hazelnuts as being the identity of the objects which fell on 9 May 1867 is that May is the wrong time of year for this type of nut. Dr Charles Nelson, Hon. Editor of the Archives of Natural History stated: "I regret I know nothing about hazelnut cultivation in Ireland at any stage - on the face of it it is a rather unlikely occupation for any one in the country given the prevalence of the wild hazel. However, that does not mean it never occurred....Hazel,of course, has 'legendary' associations as a food in Ireland, but I never heard of its deliberate planting and cultivation as a crop." Dr Nelson also gave me the following information: "A shower of hazelnuts in May beggars belief - one wonders if someone was playing a joke. 'Nuts in May'?? Looking at it from various angles, even if hazel was cultivated in or near Dublin, there would have been no nuts on the trees in May. Hazel nuts are formed when the trees flower in the earlier part of the year but the size of the immature nuts would be very small and I doubt they would be recognizable." (Dr. C. Nelson , pers. comm.).

Therefore it can be concluded on this occasion that the chance of the shower being of hazelnuts is almost definitely impossible. Thus, one could conclude that berries seem a much more likely option.

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#5
Magical Realist Online
Yeah...those whirlwinds that selectively pick hazelnuts from trees without twigs or branches or leaves are quite an event. I'm not sure whirlwinds can form in wooded areas though. Radford would probably attribute it to selective weighting distributions of chaotic wind masses. Yeah...that's it...
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#6
Yazata Offline
(Jan 29, 2018 07:55 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: https://www.click2houston.com/news/winte...ents-yards

See this old thread about a rain of earthworms on a Norwegian mountain.

https://www.scivillage.com/thread-752.html

(Jan 29, 2018 09:30 PM)C C Wrote: [Charles] Fort admitted that this [tornadoes and waterspouts] is a possibility, but offered several reasons why he doubted that's the true or complete explanation: "It is so easy to say that small frogs that have fallen from the sky had been scooped up by a whirlwind ... but [this explanation offers] no regard for mud, debris from the bottom of a pond, floating vegetation, loose things from the shores — but a precise picking out of the frogs only. ... Also, a pond going up would be quite as interesting as frogs coming down.

That's what makes me skeptical about the whirlwind theory. It's true that we don't know that all of the organisms in a fall are literally the same biological species. (Somebody should try to determine whether that's the case the next time one of these falls occurs.) But regardless of species, they are all fish (in this case) or frogs or earthworms in other cases.

What these falls don't seem to be is a mix of different sorts of small animals in much smaller numbers, along with plant debris and inorganic material like mud, which is what I'd expect to see if the 'whirlwind' theory was correct.
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