Fish Fall from the Sky in Australia

Published March 13, 2010 01:03AM

TMPL_VAR MEDIA_FILES.USE.22742 In the midst of heavy rains in central Australia two weeks ago, fish fell from the ski in an Australian community located hundreds of kilometers from large lakes (Lake Argyle and Lake Elliott) and even further from the coast. According to eye witnesses, hundreds and hundreds of small white spangled perch dropped out of the sky two weeks ago in the community of Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine, Australia, according to The Northern Territory News.

Lajamanu is located on the edge of the Tanami Desert. Resident Christine Balmer, who took the photos above, said the common to northern Australia fish were alive when they hit the ground. It’s not the first time the town has experienced this phenomenon. In 1974 and in 2004, locals reported fish falling from the sky in the same area.

Various weather professionals including Northern Territory News weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson, said the geological conditions were perfect on Friday for a tornado in the Douglas Daly region, though no tornados were reported that day. According to Patterson, “With an updraft, (fish and water picked up) could get up high – up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet.”

Freak incident or by product of global warming? in 2007, NASA predicted that Global Warming would bring the most violent and sever storms and tornadoes with intense updraft. According to the Science Daily article, “the prediction of stronger continental storms and more lightning in a warmer climate is a natural consequence of the tendency of land surfaces to warm more than oceans and for the freezing level to rise with warming to an altitude where lightning-producing updrafts are stronger.”

AccuWeather says the falling fish are the first strange objects to fall from the sky, though the incidents have been infrequent. A turtle reportedly fell from the sky after a severe hailstorm in 1894 in Mississippi. After a huge storm in Dorset, England, lumps of coal fell from the sky in June of 1983. A thunderstorm in 1939 in also caused frogs to fall in Wiltshire, England. And sometimes in the American west chickens are picked up by tornados, which often plucks them clean before returning them to the ground.