Singing in the Spider Rain? 6 Astonishing Animal Downpours

"Raining cats and dogs" is commonly used to describe heavy rain, but did you ever wonder if strong weather could really make animals fall from the sky? This was, after all, the premise of the infamous Sharknado movie franchise. You'll probably be glad to hear that it's never really rained heavy animals like sharks, cats and dogs. But fish, frog, eel and spider rain is very much on the cards. Here are six times such strange events have happened.

6. Seafood Rain in Qingdao, China (2018)

In 2018, a violent storm struck the coastal city of Qingdao in China. The hurricane force winds were so powerful, they caused a waterspout to form over the ocean that sucked up small creatures from below. And what happens to poor sea creatures who happen to be swimming where a fast-moving waterspout forms? If you’ve seen Sharknado, you know the answer.

Luckily for the people of Qingdao, it didn’t rain deadly sharks. But they were showered with an assortment of sea creatures, including starfish, shellfish and mollusks. China's weather agency would later confirm that many sea creatures had been blown inland by the waterspout, and residents of the city shared images of the surreal “seafood rain” online.

5. Eel Rain in Coalburg, Alabama (1892)

The Qingdao incident in 2018 is far from the first time nature has provided people with an unsolicited assortment of seafood. Way back in 1892, the hamlet of Coalburg in Alabama had a similar experience. When rain broke out of a black storm cloud one night, the people living there quickly noticed that something was off about the sound of the raindrops.

When they looked outside, they initially believed they were seeing a storm of snakes, but they soon realized that it was actually raining young eels. Contemporary reports from witnesses say that there were millions of them, but these numbers could be overstated. Still, there were enough to create mountains of eels that rendered the village uninhabitable for a short time. It wasn't all bad, though. The farmers used the slippery supply as fertilizer for their crops.

4. Frog Rain in Calgary, Canada (1921)

In August 1921, the people of Calgary experienced a similarly disturbing downpour. Frogs were falling from the heavens and crashing all over 11 Avenue. While the people struggled to make sense of what they were witnessing, it’s believed that the cats in the neighborhood enjoyed quite a feast.

One theory which could explain the unusual rain is that they’d been sucked up by a tornado. It is possible for small ponds to be completely consumed by tornadoes, and presumably any frogs in the water would be taken as well. Surprisingly, amphibious assaults like this one have a long history and were even reported way back in ancient times. Extreme weather events are thought to have been responsible then, too.

3. Fish Rain in Oroville, California (2017)

The animals that get picked up and moved by tornadoes and waterspouts have to be light, so small fish are often the unlucky ones. This was the case in a northern California town in 2017, but what’s strange about this example is how specific the drop zone was: a single elementary school campus.

On an otherwise normal Tuesday, a storm struck right above Stanford Avenue Elementary School in Oroville, California, and it began raining fish all over the school grounds. At first, the staff thought that the school had been the victim of a strange prank. However, reports say that the storm started up again while the school was at recess, and the poor students in the playground were pelted with the wriggly, wet payload.

2. Spider Rain in Southern Tablelands, Australia

Some animals are actually able to use the weather to move themselves to new locations. This is what happens during “mass ballooning.” If you don’t know what this is, it probably conjures up images of a gracefully ascending army of hot air balloons, like in Cappadocia, Turkey. But that idyllic image couldn’t be further from the nightmare of what it really means. For it’s not people who engage in mass ballooning, but Australian spiders.

They “balloon” by climbing to the highest point in their habitat, spinning strands of silk together in a way that catches the wind, and casting themselves into the air to find a new home. The “mass” part of the name comes because millions of them do this at the same time. However, as terrifying as this sounds, scientists say that there’s no need to panic. The spiders which do this are very small.

1. Ant Rain in Winnipeg, Canada (1895)

If the weather is strong enough and its payload is light enough, it’s possible for animals to be carried to entirely different countries. This is what happened one warm day in 1895 in Winnipeg, Canada. In what must have been a truly terrifying sight, a blizzard of biting black ants descended from a heavy storm cloud.

The ants were said to be as big as wasps and to have strong nippers, and they were unlike anything the Canadians had seen. They were foreign to the region, so they must have been carried quite a distance to where they were eventually dropped off. Reports said that they looked like African ants, but it is believed that they were picked up in the southern regions of the US.

Have You Ever Seen The Spider Rain?

I want to know, have you ever witnessed any freaky weather like this? The spider rain in Australia (and Brazil) happens each year, and there have been other cases of animal rain besides these ones. If you've seen any, share your story in the comments!

These words are all mine: no AI, no algorithmic curation. If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a tip to support my work and buy my good boys and girls some treats!

Learn More:

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5847383/Storm-photos-appear-starfish-octopus-flying-streets-China.html
• https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/it-s-raining-eels-1.257143
• https://thefisheriesblog.com/2019/11/18/the-day-it-rained-eels/
• https://globalnews.ca/news/4371433/calgary-raining-frogs/
• https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/18/did-it-really-rain-fish-in-oroville-this-week/
• https://kdvr.com/news/trending/fish-rain-from-the-sky-covering-school-in-smelly-sea-life/
• https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/123924871?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FM%2Ftitle%2F492%2F1895%2F11%2F14%2Fpage%2F12641895%2Farticle%2F123924871