When it rains frogs

05 March 2009 - 02:00
By unknown

July Gumede has a question about frogs falling from the sky

July Gumede has a question about frogs falling from the sky

As amazing as it may seem, there have been a number of accounts of "raining frogs", in other words, frogs falling out of the sky like rain. There is a good scientific explanation for this.

A small tornado forms over a body of water. This type of tornado is called a waterspout.

The centre of the waterspout is able to pick up the relatively low-weight items in its path,such as water and sea creatures.

Frogs are fairly lightweight.

When the storm hits land, it loses some of its energy and slows down. The clouds release the water they're carrying. As the rain falls, whatever it has picked up, in this case frogs, fall to the ground.

The end result is frog rain. Sometimes there are only about 20 frogs, other times hundreds or even thousands. -

environmentalgraffiti.com; science.howstuffworks.com; wikipedia.org