Desert town baffled as fish fall from sky

[Egaladeist]

A town in the northern Australian desert has been pelted in a downpour - of fish.

Marine life tumbled out of the sky on two occasions last week, raining down on the Northern Territory town of Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine. The town is hundreds of kilometres from lakes and the coast.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson told the Northern Territory News that a tornado in the nearby Douglas Daly region may have been responsible, although no twisters had been reported.

"It's a very unusual event," he said. "With an updraft, [fish and water picked up] could get up high - up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet. Or possibly from a tornado over a large water body - but we haven't had any reports."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/ar ... d=10629376

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/aussie-des ... sh-3389069

OK...

and no one apparently had the common sense to video it raining fish...or even take a picture with their phone of fish falling from the sky...

just a single picture of 9 fish in a bowl...

does anyone else smell ' let's become a tourist town by conjuring up an incredible story that'll lure thousands of visitors to our dying town to revitalize it as a tourist attraction '

[rapier57]

Yeah, I think you have the right of this one, Eg. Nothing like using the word news as your marketing vehicle.

[|3lack|ce]

It's possible but highly unlikely in this day and age that no one video'd the 'flying fish'.

However it's not an unheard-of phenomena to meteorologists. Fish rains are quite common in fact following a moderately severe to severe hurricane, or even a severe weather system which has passed over a large body of water. Fish rains have been heard of as far as 1000 miles inland depending on the strength of the storm.

How it happens: Large storms with heavy rotations and the jet stream overhead to keep them from choking out tend to spawn tornadoes. Over water, these water spouts act like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up whatever happens to be in their path. The water falls back to earth as rain - but one cannot trace precisely from whence a raindrop originated. Fish can be (and are) picked up by these same water spouts, and if carried high enough into the storm they can glide hundreds of miles along with it in the high velocity winds at the top of the storm before gravity catches up with them and they return to the earth.

I have yet to see it actually rain cats and dogs, but if we ever get a storm severe enough....

[Egaladeist]

Yep, I've heard that too Ice...and it does happen...but in this case I think it was a stunt...like you said:

It's possible but highly unlikely in this day and age that no one video'd the 'flying fish'.

Or even took a photo with their phone.