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Fish in a parking lot, now identified as shad.
Posted on 06/22/2022 10:37:44 AM PDT by texas booster
(Here is the first part of the story ...)
The East Texas city of Texarkana experienced a rare weather event to close out the year: It rained fish.
The phenomenon, known as “animal rain,” occurred Wednesday in the city, where officials declared in a Facebook post that 2021 “is pulling out all of the tricks…including raining fish.”
“And no, this isn’t a joke,” the post continued.
The city asked residents who witnessed the strange event for their fish photos — some provided them in a lengthy comment thread, along with notes of disbelief — and offered a quick primer on the strange event.
As an article in the Library of Congress explains, scientists believe tornadic waterspouts or updrafts to be responsible for fish and small animal falls that have been observed — but not thoroughly documented — around the planet for centuries. ...
In Texarkana, James Audirsch said he heard a thunderclap when he and co-worker Brad Pratt opened the car dealership’s doors.
“It was raining real hard and a fish hit the ground,” Audirsch told NBC affiliate KTAL. “I said, ‘it’s raining fish.’ Brad was like, ‘no it’s not.’ I was like, ‘no it really is.’ And fish were dropping, here and everywhere.”
What appeared to be young white bass measuring less than half a foot could be seen scattered around the dealership’s parking lot, the station reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Last week, Sharon Hill, a geologist and independent researcher based in Pennsylvania, and Paul Cropper, an author in Australia, shared their findings that a flock of birds may have regurgitated the fish while flying over the east Texas town.
Both had conducted investigations in the past related to natural phenomena, but this was the first time that they had worked together. The pair investigated multiple hypotheses, including if the whole incident was a hoax.
“This was one of the better ones, because we had never seen fish-fall being documented over such a wide area,” she said.
Some of the hypotheses, such as those that involved a waterspout, were ruled out because local weather officials did not report any tornadic activity in the area, Hill said.
One of the first hypotheses that the two investigated was whether flooding washed up fish onto the ground. Fish, however, were found above ground level, such as in truck beds and rooftops, Hill said.
They also looked into whether fish may have been dropped from a plane, but no records backed up that theory.
“Some lakes and larger bodies of water are stocked by planes,” she said. “It’s rare, but it does happen.”
As they made their way through the different possibilities, Hill said evidence seemed to point toward birds — cormorants, specifically.
“The last one that we knew that was a reasonable explanation was the birds, either carrying them in their beaks, their talons or their stomachs,” Hill said.
The University of Texas Biodiversity Center in Austin will help verify the findings of the investigation, Hill said, but he added the two-person team is confident of their conclusion.
Hill said she and Cropper spoke with residents in the area who said they had seen cormorants around the time of the fish falling from the sky.
Additionally, they spoke to officials at the Texarkana Regional Airport who said cormorants were common near the facility.
“Usually they fly down in the morning,” said Paul Mehrlich, the executive director of the regional airport. “They go between two different lakes that are in the area and you’ll see hundreds of them flying over at a time.”
The storm on Dec. 29 moved through the area around the time that he and other staff regularly see cormorants flying over the airport, Mehrlich said. The birds migrate through the area between fall and spring, he added.
That same day, Mehrlich said staff found fish “all over” the airport runway. Crews shoveled up about ten pounds of fish, and caused a delay for one of the planes at the airport.
Russell Henderson, the operations manager of the airport, said he spoke with someone aboard the delayed aircraft, and remembered how surprised they were at the sight of the fish.
“He said, ‘Hey Russ, have you ever, in your life, seen anything like this?” Henderson recalled.
Mehrlich said airport staff, too, initially thought the fish were carried by a waterspout.
“The next morning we had all those birds flying over us again, and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, it was around the time that birds were flying back,’” he said. “And the fish were kind of chewed up.’”
Fish in a parking lot, now identified as shad.
And so it begins... Sharknado!
Now send down the chips! And a little tartar sauce.
shad nado...
perhaps.
https://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/national/article250719549.html
Well, that explains the sharknado.
Where is Charles Fort when we need him?
Those are not sand bass.
Must be some of those flying fish.
A waterspout. Same as a tornado but over a lake or ocean. They can be small and lest just a few seconds or several minutes. They can be just a few feet high or a thousand feet into the air. Warm air is sandwiched between a cool lake and cold higher air. A whole in the warm air allows the upper cold air to escape down while the cold upper air escapes up. The water and fish just get sucked up in the vacuum. Its the same concept as Almira Gulch in WoO.
Oh. So a giant flock of Cormorants were flying in the rain and regurgitated fish simultaneously. Is that what I’m supposed to believe?
shad
Yes, indeed.
Who is in charge of the vomited fish falling from the sky ping list?
It happens in Florida fairly often.....................
Such sloppy and uncurious journalism these days. All these details and yet never ventured to ask the most important question: How do they taste?
You beat me to it. I have a book of his writings somewhere upstairs. Along with copies of the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
I think ‘The Book of the Damned’ and ‘Lo!’ are available on archive.org now.
I thought of the second part of this episode of One Step Beyond.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0507859/
That looks good. I hadn’t heard of the series.
(We just bought the whole Twilight Zone series, so it’ll have to wait ;-)
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