Jun 18, 2009 06:30 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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Over the past week, extremely weird things have been falling from the sky in Asia. Mega-hail destroyed almost 10,000 homes in China, while dead animals have been raining from the clouds in Japan (pictured: tadpoles on a car).
Although blogs like Pink Tentacle have been reporting the tadpole rains of Japan for over a week now, the news is finally hitting mainstream outlets. Apparently small fish as well as tadpoles are falling on various districts in Japan. Usually they're dead by the time they hit the ground. One man claimed he found 13 tiny carp had rained onto his car. Nobody has come forward with a good theory about how they have gotten into rain clouds, nor has anyone been able to explain what might have changed recently to make this happen.
According to the UK Guardian:
One popular theory is that the creatures were sucked up by waterspouts but meteorologists say no strong winds have been reported in the areas where tadpoles were found. One expert said gusts too weak to be picked up by observatories might have sucked up small quantities of water, along with a few unfortunate tadpoles. Ornithologists said it was too early too rule out their feathered friends.Kimimasa Tokikuni, head of the Ishikawa branch of the Japanese Society for the Preservation of Birds, told the Yomiuri Shimbun that bigger birds, such as herons and black-tailed gulls, might have dropped the tadpoles after being disturbed in mid-flight.
But the startled bird theory fails to answer a simple question: why haven't the "flying" tadpoles been noticed before?
Less unusual but no less alarming have been this spate of mega-hail storms in China recently. Giant hail stones, combined with winds up to 62 miles per hour, crushed thousands of houses and injured hundreds of people over the last week. Xenophilia reports:
Recovery efforts have begun in eastern China following a severe hail storm on Sunday that killed at least 14 people and destroyed thousands of homes.Hail stones and winds of more than 100km/h (62mph) lashed the province for nearly 90 minutes, uprooting trees and scattering debris across roads.
The Civil Affairs bureau in Anhui province says more than 10,000 people had to be taken to emergency shelters.
I suppose you could call this climate change, since in fact it does represent a change in the climate. Especially the tadpoles. But I have to admit it seems like something a lot weirder than that.
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
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