We all had a good laugh at SyFy's monster movie Sharknado, about a tornado that sucks up hungry sharks from the ocean and flings them at unsuspecting landlubbers. But ...could something like that ever happen in real life?
In real life, of course, sharks don’t fall from the sky. But fish, frogs, and alligators do—and scientists think the likely cause is a weather phenomenon called a “waterspout,” a term first coined in 1738 by traveler Thomas Shaw.
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And a waterspout might sweep up animals that dwell near the surface of a body of water and bring them to land. Vaccaro says waterspouts are somewhat like vertical rotating washers at a carwash, which circulate water and then fling it an anything in their path.
There have been accounts of fish, snails, alligators, frogs, and worms raining down on inland areas, most likely after they'd been transported by a waterspout. Read about those incidents at NatGeo's Pop Omnivore. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!