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Raining Cats and Frogs?

Okay, so it may not be raining cats but it definitely rains frogs occasionally and it's been reported all over the world. You may have seen it rain frogs on such TV shows as The X-Files. The most likely explanation made by meteorologists is that a near-by wind storm sucked them up and after moving them many miles, spits them back out again. You decide for yourself where these little guys come from.

• In the summer of 1926, a young caddie at a local golf course recorded this "frog fall". here had been a drought that summer and the fairways were brown and dried up. One afternoon, a sudden storm came up and a terrific thunderstorm followed. Rain came down in torrents and with it frogs about the size of nickels. They were alive and jumping and there were thousands of them. The golfers and the young man couldn't believe their eyes as they watched thousands of frogs rain down from the sky.
  W.A. Walker, Evansville Indiana (Camden, Arkansas News 1-2-1973)

• "I was raised on a farm in Minnesota, and as a boy, I remember a storm coming up. It looked serious, so we ran to the cellar. Afterwards we went outside and saw our chickens eating tiny frogs and fishes!"
  F.J. McManus, Laguna Beach, California

• "About 35 years ago while I was driving through a thunderstorm near Hershey, Pennsylvania, dozens of tiny frogs came down and pelted the hood of my automobile."
  D.F. Garner, Baltimore, Maryland

• According to the July 27th, 1981 Bedfordshire Times (Bedford, UK), a Mrs. Vida McWilliam of Bedford found her garden hopping with little frogs after a rain storm. Mrs. McWilliam wrote:
  
  "I can't remember the exact date but it was June of 1979. One Sunday we had a really wet day, rain lashing down and very windy! It was damp and humid the next day as well. On my patio, near the caged area for my cat, I noticed what looked like half-grown tadpoles. To my surprise, there were little green frogs everywhere! It must have rained frogs that Sunday! Later in the week my grand daughter and I went down to the garden to cut the lawn and it was amazing! The grass was covered in little green frogs and on the bushes hung spawn. We collected up the frogs and took them to the garden. All summer my grandchildren and I carefully watched them as they made a home under the potting shed. I'm afraid last year, (1980) we only had three left but they had grown to full size."

• In Minneapolis during the summer of 1901, torrents of frogs fell from the sky, accumulating up to three inches deep in places and bringing traffic to a standstill. It is thought that strong winds like those found in thunderstorms, hurricanes and whirlwinds, suck up the objects like a vacuum cleaner and deposit them elsewhere.

• The first reported instance of frogs falling as precipitation was reported in 1804 near Toulouse, France, where "A tremendous number of little toads were seen to fall from a great thick cloud from a sky that had previously been cloudless." Several other storms were reported by Charles Fort after the events. He noted that many frogs fell along with rain, or stick and small leaves. The frogs that fell along with cats were promptly eaten. Frogs that fell with flies were much safer. The basic foundation of animal food chains for frogs could be determined if we studied these showers further, but as slightly melodramatic philosopher Alexander the Grey once noted, "Who will care?"

• It rained toads in the town of Villa Angel Flores. A small tornado whirled up a cluster of toads from a local body of water Saturday night and dropped them all in the town in the Pacific coast state of Sineloa, the newspaper El Debate reported Tuesday. Motorists reported the amphibians dropping from the sky around 11 p.m.
  The Press Democrat News Services, Culiacan, Mexico (June 1997)

• Thousands of tiny frogs rained on a town in north-western Serbia, Belgrade daily Blic reported on Tuesday. Strong winds brought storm clouds over Odzaci, 120km north-west of Belgrade, on Sunday afternoon, but instead of rain, down came the tiny amphibians, witnesses said. "I saw countless frogs fall from the sky," said Odzaci resident Aleksandar Ciric. The frogs, different from those usually seen in the area, survived the fall and hopped around in search of water. Belgrade Climatologist Slavisa Ignjatovic described the phenomenon as "not very unusual". "A wind resembling a tornado can suck in anything light enough from the surface or shallow water. Usually it's just dust, but sometimes also larger objects," Ignjatovic told Blic.
  Sapa-DPA, Belgrade Paper, Serbia (June 2005)

• In 1873, Scientific American reported that Kansas City, Missouri was blanketed with frogs that dropped from the sky during a storm.

• The citizens of Naphlion, a city in southern Greece, were surprised one morning in May, 1981, when they awoke to find small green frogs falling from the sky. Weighing just a few ounces each, the frogs landed in trees and plopped into the streets. The Greek Meteorological Institute surmised they were picked up by a strong wind. It must have been a very strong wind. The species of frog was native to North Africa!

• In 1995, reports Fortean Times Online, Nellie Straw of Sheffield, England, was driving through Scotland on holiday with her family when they encountered a severe storm. Along with the heavy rain, however, hundreds of frogs suddenly pelted her car.