There's Something Fishy About the Weather

August 7, 2000

LONDON (Reuters) - 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 back yard 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."