Raining fish theories up the creek as reports flood in
BEN LANGFORD
March 2nd, 2010


STORMS which rain fish may be being confused with fish swimming from creeks along flooded ground, a Territory expert said yesterday.

But he had no sooner finished giving his rational explanation than another Northern Territory News reader phoned in a story of raining fish - with no rivers or creeks in the area.

Several readers have called to report small fish appearing out of nowhere and flapping around on the ground, and said they rained from the sky.

Reports have come to the NT News from Lajamanu, Maningrida and Hermannsburg.

The phenomenon has been documented around the world and is believed to be cause by small twisters or waterspouts.

As they pass over water small fish can be sucked up into the clouds and kept there as the cloud moves over land.

Eventually they fall from the cloud to the ground, inevitably surprising any people who see them.

Incidents of raining frogs have also been reported.

NT head of medical entomology Peter Whelan said the examples in the Territory had probably involved fish swimming from creeks and drains across sheet-flooded areas. When the water leaves the fish are left behind.

"They swim upstream and they get stranded, especially these desert fish," he said.

"If there's sheet water flowing across areas just for a brief period of time they can swim up that flow, in just 1cm or 2cm of water. I haven't seen them going across an oval but I've seen them going across bitumen roads."

But then Dominic Fraccaro, 66, called to say he saw fish that he thought fell from the sky in 1974, when he was working installing airconditioning at Hooker Creek (now called Lajamanu).

"It was raining fish and it was known to all the locals," he said. Mr Fraccaro said he did not see them fall but there was no other explanation.

"Where I was they would have had to have come out of the sky because there's not rivers - not on the black soil plains," he said.