Aquatic creatures rain in Iran. A genuine atmospheric phenomenon explained by science
Fish showered down from the sky in Iran – an uncommon meteorological phenomenon, yet not exceedingly rare. Science clarifies.
Last weekend, a downpour of fish (literally) surprised the residents of Yasuj, in Iran, causing not only amazement but also disruptions in the city’s normal traffic flow.
This event is known as “animal rain” and can occur in various ways.
As explained by El Mundo, animal rain can happen when fish or other creatures are pulled from rivers or lakes, swept up into the clouds, and then fall as precipitation.
Furthermore, during storms and tornadoes with very high wind speeds, fish can be extracted from the water and trapped in these systems. There are cases where animals are carried over long distances and then deposited as rain.
In this particular instance, a waterspout was involved – which, as Paulo Pinto from the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) told Público, is “a meteorological phenomenon that consists of a whirlwind of wind, often violent”.
#SevereWeather 📹
Amazing fish shower 🐟 in #Yasuj, Iran.Residents of this city were startled by a strange occurrence. It is believed that a marine spout suctioned up a large quantity of fish that shortly thereafter fell on the streets. pic.twitter.com/cS1PePMkoM
— Meteored | Tempo.pt (@MeteoredPT) May 7, 2024
This was not the first time such an event occurred. In 2022, ZAP reported an “unusual fish shower” in Texas, United States.
El Mundo reveals that there is a very specific part of the globe where this phenomenon is recurrent. In the city of Yoro, in Honduras, during the storms of May and June, it is very common for fish to be swept up and then return to land in the form of rain.
But it’s not just fish. In 1877, as the same newspaper tells, there was a snake shower in Memphis, USA.
