You may have heard someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” but has anyone ever told you that it’s raining fish or maybe frogs, clams, or jellyfish? It sounds crazy, but people all over the world confirm these reports. In 1873, the citizens of Kansas City, MO looked up and saw fish and frogs raining down on them. The year before that in Bucharest, Romania, it rained little black worms, and many years later, on July 4, 1995, the residents of Keokuk, IA watched as full cans of soda fell from the sky. Impossible? Not if a tornado has anything to do with it.
A tornado is a powerful, rotating column of air that can act like your vacuum cleaner - it sucks things up. Your vacuum has a container that it uses to store the things that it draws into it, but tornadoes don’t have that so they have to drop whatever they’ve taken. Some times they drop those things right away. Other times, the tornadoes suck things all the way up into the storm cloud that created them. The storm cloud might then carry its cargo for miles before letting it fall to the ground.
Remember the cans of soda that fell in Keokuk, IA? They came from a bottling plant in Moberly, MO where a tornado had hit – 150 miles away! Frogs have pelted France (1977), England (1939), and Dubuque, IA. Other interesting “rainfall” has included: Jellyfish (England, 1894), clams (Philadelphia, 1869), lizards and salamanders (Montreal, 1857), but the foulest of falls reported was in Bucharest, Romania on July 25, 1872. It was a stifling hot day when a cloud of black worms sent from a tornado miles away descended on the city, covering their streets.
Not only can tornadoes drop curious creatures in your yard, they can do many other interesting feats. In 1990, a tornado in Columbia, MO lifted the roof off a house, sucked up the curtains, and then set the roof back down. While one house was totally destroyed, the house next door was left untouched, and in that same tornado, a man went flying in his truck. Although it was a scary ride, the tornado set him down gently and without a scratch.
Tornadoes that form over the ocean are called waterspouts. Ocean water gets caught up in the swirling air and makes a column of rotating water. Some times fish get sucked up in the waterspout, and get deposited in other places. This happened in Marksville, LA in 1947. Some of the fish that fell that day were frozen which means that the waterspout had drawn them up very high in the sky where temperatures are much colder than they are on the ground.
Tornadoes are strong, powerful, and often unpredictable. You never know what they might do. So the next time you hear someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” look out your window. Maybe it really is.
A tornado is a powerful, rotating column of air that can act like your vacuum cleaner - it sucks things up. Your vacuum has a container that it uses to store the things that it draws into it, but tornadoes don’t have that so they have to drop whatever they’ve taken. Some times they drop those things right away. Other times, the tornadoes suck things all the way up into the storm cloud that created them. The storm cloud might then carry its cargo for miles before letting it fall to the ground.
Remember the cans of soda that fell in Keokuk, IA? They came from a bottling plant in Moberly, MO where a tornado had hit – 150 miles away! Frogs have pelted France (1977), England (1939), and Dubuque, IA. Other interesting “rainfall” has included: Jellyfish (England, 1894), clams (Philadelphia, 1869), lizards and salamanders (Montreal, 1857), but the foulest of falls reported was in Bucharest, Romania on July 25, 1872. It was a stifling hot day when a cloud of black worms sent from a tornado miles away descended on the city, covering their streets.
Not only can tornadoes drop curious creatures in your yard, they can do many other interesting feats. In 1990, a tornado in Columbia, MO lifted the roof off a house, sucked up the curtains, and then set the roof back down. While one house was totally destroyed, the house next door was left untouched, and in that same tornado, a man went flying in his truck. Although it was a scary ride, the tornado set him down gently and without a scratch.
Tornadoes that form over the ocean are called waterspouts. Ocean water gets caught up in the swirling air and makes a column of rotating water. Some times fish get sucked up in the waterspout, and get deposited in other places. This happened in Marksville, LA in 1947. Some of the fish that fell that day were frozen which means that the waterspout had drawn them up very high in the sky where temperatures are much colder than they are on the ground.
Tornadoes are strong, powerful, and often unpredictable. You never know what they might do. So the next time you hear someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” look out your window. Maybe it really is.
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