There's something fishy about England's weather
Monday, August 7, 2000
It frequently rains "cats and dogs" in Britain, as any local will tell you, but
Sunday was different ‹ it rained fish.
Britain's Meteorological Office said a shower of dead but still fresh sprats
rained down on the fishing port of Great Yarmouth, in the east England county of
Norfolk, after a thunderstorm.
Retired ambulance driver Fred Hodgkins said: "I thought at first I might have
had something wrong with my eyes. The whole of my backyard seemed to be covered
in little slivers of silver."
Meteorological Office spokesman Sean Clarke said the fish shower would have been
caused by a small tornado out to sea, known as a waterspout, which trawls up
water and any fish near the surface.
"When the tornado touches the land it begins to lose energy and its contents are
thrown to the ground," he said. "Area for area, the UK experiences far more
tornadoes than the U.S., but in the UK they are less intense."
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