Fish rain on Australian town

Have you guys heard of this?

I know this is not a native fish story, but I thought it was an interesting phenomenon. Are there records for this occurring in the US...the Midwest, for example? Could something like this explain certain invasives, like the Northern Studfish appearing in the Little Miami? Could this type of thing explain fish dispersal in relatively widely spread or isolated locations? Another question that occurs to me: Can fish dispersal be tracked by weather paterns? For example, is dispersal almost always from West to East, following the most likely path of strong storms creating stronger genetic diversity in a population of fishes in it's Eastern most range? Maybe this is also why there is such huge diversity in the smaller species (more easliy picked up by a storm) of fishes just to the West of the Smoky Mountains, (which is a barrier to storms) and less and less as we go West, and fewer again on the Eastern side of the mountains, where the storms cannot easily reach.
Things that make you go hmmmm.....

LAJAMANU, Australia, March 1 (UPI) -- Weather experts said the fish that fell on a remote Australian town for two days had likely been sucked up by a thunderstorm before falling to the ground.

Residents of Lajamanu said hundreds of small white fish, believed to be common spangled perch, fell from the sky during the weekend despite the town's location 326 miles from the nearest river, The Sun reported Monday. Locals said many of the fish were still alive when they hit the ground.

Mark Kersemakers, a senior forecaster with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said the fish could have been transported by a storm system.

"It could have scooped the fish up 40,000 to 50,000 feet in the air," he said. "Once they get up into the system they are pretty much frozen. After some period they are released."

Locals said it has rained fish in the town twice before, in 1974 and 2004.

I guess I have to unlearn everything I learned in Elementary School. I thought water evaporates in to the clouds etc etc then it falls to the ground as rain. How do fish get sucked up in evaporation? Does a tornado or something do it?

There's a strangely extensive literature, or at least accounts, of this kind of phenomena. They're often called Fortean, after Charles Forte who compiled extensive accounts of things like rains of frogs or fish back in the 19th century. Wind storms and water spouts can pull substantial amounts of water and animals in it, and drop it a surprising distance away. I'm not so sure that this is always an important method of dispersal since the animals can be frozen en route, or are damaged by dropping from high altitude. Anyway they may not survive local conditions and not reproduce successfully.

Many of Forte's compilations are available through reprint publishers like Dover, I think, if you want to read some truly strange news accounts, many of them true.

Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World also documents a lot of fish and frog rains and even some seed rains.
Keith

A human with a bait bucket is far more successful at dispersing fish than a weather related phenomena. I've seen studfish used as bait throughout Tennessee, and they were even promoted as an excellent live bait for smallmouth bass on a local fishing show becuase of their hardiness.

I agree Matt I think the Ohio population is a bait bucket release. They started from a rather small area in the upper Little Miami and have spread rather quickly in the last few years throughout much of the system. There is also a population in a small direct tributary to the Ohio on the opposite side of the state and I'm sure by no coincidence this is directly across the Ohio River from an introduced population in WV that has been established for some time now. We also have several introduced populations of eastern banded killifish in reservoirs in Ohio where there is plenty of bait used and released if not all used.

Have you guys heard of this?

I know this is not a native fish story, but I thought it was an interesting phenomenon.

Every fish is native to somewhere...anyway, here was a note that I sent to the newspaper. Seems like they might print a bit more on it based on what they guy who originally did the story told me.

The original article is here, http://www.ntnews.co...891_ntnews.html

I thought I'd let you know that this almost certainly was not a rain of fish, in that the fish did not fall from the sky, they swum there during the big rain storm. The best evidence for fish falling from the sky is not finding them on the ground, but finding them in gutters and water tanks. The fact that they were alive also helps to suggest that they swum there. The Weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson should have known that if fish were lifted 60-70,000 ft up in the air the fish would be frozen to death, I suspect even if they went up just a few thousand feet they would be frozen. In addition, strong winds like this would likely batter any fish to pieces with the other debris being flung around. They other key point is that this has happened many times in the same place, and it happened two days in a row. The odds of having a weather event cause a rain of fish, in the same place multiple times is very very slim.

Note too that all of the fish were all the same species, spangled perch and that if a tornado type event picked up water with fish, it would most likely contain multiple species. When I was surveying fish out around Alice Springs everyone I spoke to had seen a rain of fish, but no one had ever found them on their roof. Spangled perch has remarkable dispersal abilities. They have been observed swimming 10 miles over a 6 hour period along a wheel rut!

Rains of fish do definitely happen, but they are very very rare.

Cheers
Peter Unmack

Edited by AussiePeter, 03 March 2010 - 12:07 AM.

Bruce...
Im glad you mentioned Charles Forte. I stumbled across one of his books while wandering the library years ago. Fascinating reading, ive always been interested in phenomena and his writing of historical incidents are amazing. Witnessed Meteor impacts, Sun dogs and multi arced rainbows, odd shaped Hailstones and yes fish from the sky.

Thanks for the Dover mention...
Here is a link if anyone is interested. It is his complete works. I plan to order it soon.

http://store.doverpu...0486230945.html

We also have several introduced populations of eastern banded killifish in reservoirs in Ohio where there is plenty of bait used and released if not all used.

Brian, please PM me, I'd be very curious as to where they are.