PRECIPITATION
During a heavy rainstorm on 25 May 1906, fish fell from the clouds over Aberdeen, South Dakota. The following morning many could be seen wriggling on the sidewalks, swimming in pools of water or lying dead on the high ground. The Rev Marshall F Montgomery, rector of St Mark’s Church, gathered several live specimens from the street. Other residents kept live souvenirs. NY Times, 27 May 1906.
In the four weeks up to 22 October 1907, residents of Glasgow, Kentucky, noticed that a fine mist had been falling continuously, confined to an area 25ft (7.6m) square. The misty area covered the spot where Bill Bartly had been murdered by his brother-in-law, Van Smith, the previous May. Since the phenomenon was first publicised, several hundred people came to see it, including in recent days State Senator JC Gillingwater and JA Conyers, connected with the United States Marshal’s office in Louisville. Both men walked slowly through the mist, and said that their coats and hats plainly showed the effects of the water. NY Times, 23 Oct 1907.
After a fall of snow in the mountainous district of Livradois in the French départment of Puy-deDome, a thick and very cold mist arose. When this cleared away, a thick coating of “black snow”, sooty in appearance and considerable in quantity, was discovered on top of the regular white snow. No one in the district had seen anything like it before. NY Times, 6 Dec 1926.
On 25 and 26 October 1931, greyishwhite particles fell on Times Square and most of Manhattan. These proved to be minute seeds with hairy crowns. Dr ED Merrill, Director of the New York Botanical Garden, identified them as common cattail (bulrush) seeds, genus Typha, from plants abundant in the Jersey marshes, carried by high westerly winds. NY Times, 27 Oct 1931.
Live fish rained down over Bordeaux, France, on 21 November 1931, blamed on a waterspout. The downpour lasted less than 30 seconds, but so many fish fell wriggling in the streets that cars were compelled to halt after crushing hundreds. Women with baskets and basins gathered as many as they could before they were swept down the drains. NY Times, 23 Nov 1931.
As the ferryboat Paunpeck of the Yonkers-Alpine Line crossed the Hudson River on the morning of 6 October 1935, an eel plopped off the roof of the pilot house and squirmed on the deck. As Skipper John New stared in astonishment, a second eel came down. Deckhand Joseph Neves explained that seagulls had been foraging in the boat’s wash, two emerging with eels in their beaks. A shrill blast on the boat’s siren startled the birds, which promptly dropped their prey. NY Times, 7 Oct 1935.
George Stofflet was standing on his porch in Reading, Pennsylvania, on 6 October 1939 when a foot-long trout landed at his feet, already fried. It had wriggled loose from a heron flying overhead, striking a high-tension wire. Mr Stofflet exhibited a photograph of himself holding the trout, crisply fried by 66,000 volts. NY Times, 7 Oct 1939.
On 16 July 1940, after a violent thunderstorm, collective farmers in the village of Meshchera, near Gorky in the Soviet Union, gathered up several oval silver coins the size of large fish scales. Archæologists identified them as from the late 16th century, and speculated they were part of an ancient treasure exposed by erosion and sent flying by the storm. [AP] NY Times, Daily Express, 5 Aug 1940.