ACCORDING to ABC News, residents of a remote outback community were left puzzled as fish “rained from the sky” in a “surprising, but not unheard of, weather event”.
The ABC said locals in Lajamanu, a community 560 kilometres south-west of Katherine on the northern edge of the Tanami Desert, said they were stunned to see the fish drop during heavy rainfall.
The fish were reportedly spangled perch.
“We’ve seen a big storm heading up to my community and we thought it was just rain,” Lajamanu local and Central Desert councillor Andrew Johnson Japanangka said.
This is not the first time the strange phenomenon has swept through the community.
The same occurred in Lajamanu in 2010, and was also reported in 2004 and as far back as 1974.
Weather experts believe incidents like these can be caused by strong updrafts, such as tornadoes, which suck water and fish from rivers and dump them hundreds of kilometres away.
Japanangka said the fish, which were at least “the size of two fingers”, were still alive when they fell.
“Some are still hanging around in the community in a puddle of water,” he said.
“Children are picking them up and keeping them in a bottle or a jar.”
While it is not the first time he had witnessed the phenomenon, Mr Japanangka said it never ceased to blow him away.
“We saw some free-falling down to the ground. And some falling onto the roof,” he said.
“It was the most amazing thing we’ve ever seen,” he told the ABC.
