Weather Gone Wild: Lightning, Haboobs, and Animal Rain—Oh My!

From sky-high lightning bolts that span hundreds of miles to walls of sand swallowing cities whole, extreme weather is wild—and sometimes, just plain weird. 🌩️💨 In this episode of Wildly Curious, Katy and Laura break down some of nature’s most shocking meteorological events, including lightning that’s hotter than the sun, haboobs that turn day into night, and actual raining animals (yes, really).

But that’s not all! We also dive into pink snow (that smells like watermelon), blood rain, and the terrifying reality of firestorms that create their own weather systems. Whether you love a good thunderstorm or prefer to stay inside during a drizzle, this episode will have you looking at the sky in a whole new way.

🔊 Tune in for science, comedy, and the most bizarre weather facts you never knew you needed!

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.

Katy: And I'm Katy, and today we're going to be talking about extreme weather and how it showcases just the craziness that happens. And I figured this is like actually really timely because it's in the spring right now when we're recording this.

Laura: we're gonna start seeing some crazy weather.

Katy: We have, we did, I did in Texas

Laura: Oh yeah, we did have some crazy wind.

Katy: good night.

Yeah, semis blown over on the highway. The, , carport outside of our apartment, peeled the roof off of it.

Laura: Yeah, we 

had a lot of downed

Katy: Crazy. Yeah.

power outages. 

. Go ahead. I'll let you go first then.

Laura: I'm gonna start with the most minor of the extreme, I guess in like my opinion. Which is, I'm covering three different phenomena.

Katy's kinda hitting all the different precipitation. Where , I'm,

Katy: All the

Laura: I've got lightning and windy stuff, okay?

Katy: lightning and windy

Laura: [00:01:00] So let's start with lightning. It's so freaking cool. I love a good thunderstorm with lightning. I like to sit out on the porch like a crazy person, not exposed, but out there, and just be surrounded by the elements like that.

Katy: Yeah. We, we don't have, good thunderstorms, real thunder lightning storms like we did back north and,

Laura: Yeah, you need those

Katy: the northeast. Yeah, we don't have that here in Texas, so I do miss it. You'll hear it, but again, if it rains. It's, once every three months, cause it's

Laura: know this.

Katy: So,

Laura: Uh.

Katy: if you get rained with a good thunderstorm, that's even rarer down here. Yeah.

Laura: So real quick with lightning, I don't want to get too in the weeds with, how it's formed and all that kind of stuff, but leave it to say, it is electricity that happens. Normally the air dampens the electric current stuff that happens, but eventually, because of particles zooming around because of storms, that insulator breaks down and then Like That electric spark happens.

Isn't that a good, it's a good sound effect. [00:02:00] that was the thunder part, not the lighting. Well, the first part was the lighting

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So typically what we find are negatively charged strikes, so neg negative at the cloud, positive at the ground.

Katy: Yes.

Laura: They travel about 60,000 miles per second. So it's very fast.

Very fast. And sometimes when you see that, flicker, it's because it's not necessarily just one stroke, it could be one to twenty strokes per flash. So it might be like rapid fire. And just typical old run of the mill lightning can reach 300, 000 amps and 30, 000 Kelvin, which is five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

Katy: Again, how people even survive

Laura: I don't, right? That's wild.

Katy: I mean, I guess it's because it's so

Laura: so fast.

Katy: a flash burn, like, I don't

Laura: yeah, that your [00:03:00] body doesn't have the time. I mean, you've literally touched something five times hotter than the sun. That you didn't instantly disintegrate. It's mind blowing.

Katy: yeah, no, right. That's what you would think that would happen, which is like, just like, boom, ashes

Laura: Yeah, just absolutely.

Katy: like just, and that's how internal combustion came around. You know what I mean? The myth of people talking about it.

Laura: blinked and didn't see the flash.

Katy: Yeah. And just like ashes

Laura: Ha,

Katy: a sudden just boom.

Laura: ha, ha, ha, ha. And that's just regular lightning. So I wanted to talk about a few of the more extreme, which, so first of all, there's what we call Super Bolts. Which is positively charged lightning. That's the opposite. Positive at the top, negative at the bottom.

They are more rare, but also much more powerful. They are responsible for the extreme destruction that you see with lightning storms, and typically the culprit for starting wildfires. Because they hit with up to 300, 000 kiloamps. So that's ten times stronger amps than a [00:04:00] regular bolt of lightning.

Yeah, it's just like

Katy: to be stronger. It it was like, okay. Evolution, everything on our, be like, you know what? But, this is not hot enough, or not,

Laura: This is not It's not enough.

let's just, let's make this better. We can, I feel like I can do better, and, you know, Mother Nature's just here we go. Like, I can do this better. 

 So that's the most powerful is a Superbolt. Then you have something called a MegaFlash, which I also just like the names of this. Superbolt! MegaFlash! These are super rare. And they're called this because they span huge distances and can cause multiple cloud to ground strikes, which is the most common, cloud to ground.

Laura: These can span huge distances and cause multiple cloud to ground strikes, which are the most common cloud to ground. So imagine it's this giant long flash with multiple fingers like,

Katy: Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about.

Laura: And so when I say vast distances, I mean freaking vast. The longest one ever recorded [00:05:00] was in your neck of the woods.

It was from, it spanned 477 miles. That's how long that lightning bolt was.

Katy: which is like a blip of Texas.

Laura: well it's from Central Texas to Mississippi. In 2020. Which, of course it was 2020 when we all thought the

Katy: Yeah, why not? Yeah.

Laura: Only satellites saw that flash. That, that big. You know, like, just, just, I can't even imagine.

That would be such a cool thing to see from space.

Katy: But also, too, you gotta think of, the storm front. How big is that storm? You know what I mean? For that to happen?

Laura: far and to be so charged that whole time. We were all feeling pretty charged at that time,

Katy: Yeah, right.

Laura: just the universe.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: Okay, now weird types of lightning. We've got ball lightning, which we've probably all heard of, but again, it's a really rare phenomenon and seriously, nobody really knows how this happens.

 It's still being studied and isn't even a true form of lightning, but it's essentially, A ball of light that floats or travels unpredictably through the air. [00:06:00] It can be the

Katy: Even better. It's unpredictable.

Laura: It can be from the size of a baseball to several feet in diameter, and then can just randomly explode.

Katy: Good.

Laura: So it's just a lightning grenade. That just, pffft, pffft, pffft. My dad says he's seen one once. Totally freaked him out. Came in through a window, or like something, like, right by a window.

Katy: Yeah, because again, I would be like, oh, that was a UFO. I just saw a UFO. That would be me.

Laura: erratically flying.

Katy: Right?

Laura: Ribbon lightning is also really cool, you'll have to look up a picture of this, I've never seen this, it is ribbon, yes.

So it's when there's really high winds involved, so the wind shear causes the bolts to happen in parallel flashes. Each successive bolt follows a different path, which causes these wide looking bolts. Really, a

Katy: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I see, yeah, yeah,

Laura: Normally, it's about a two inch wide bolt, but because of the wind, they're not following the exact same path.

It's, right next to each other.

Katy: Wait, [00:07:00] what's normally a two inch wide bolt? Just like a normal lightning bolt?

Laura: two inches.

Katy: That's crazy.

There's a lot of heat and power in

Laura: in one tiny

Katy: Two inches. And all they say in

Laura: Yeah, yeah. Size doesn't matter. Just don't call me Lightning Bolt. And then, um, High Altitude Lightning, or High Altitude Phenomena, almost. Okay, so this is lightning that we almost never see because this is happening actually above the thunderstorm.

The three most common types are Sprites, Jets, and Elves. , so again, like a sprite and an elf, ethereal being, so these are like, very

Katy: like, wait a minute.

Laura: They're called that because these are like, very quick, flashy things. So

Katy: cause I was like, Did we just jump podcast episodes? I'm like, yeah.

Laura: I'm gonna add in as much fantasy here as possible, no.

Katy: Alright.

Laura: Sprites are large bright red flashes that occur way up [00:08:00] above the cloud.

I'm talking 60 miles up above the thunderstorm. , into the mesosphere. They're rarely seen with the human eye, and if so, only at night because even though it's red, that red, of course we know red light doesn't travel, it just doesn't travel very far. So, sprites, if you can look up an image of these, , listeners, if you just look up, high altitude lightning.

There's a really good diagram of these three things happening, because they're happening almost at different levels. Jets are typically blue or purple streaks that flash upward really quickly, and they go about 25 to 35 miles up above the storm. So it's just like a giant finger that goes up rather than down.

Katy: Hmm.

Laura: And finally are elves, which we only just discovered, I think, in the 2000s. Yeah, because they're only able to be seen, , from space. From way high up from space or, or like with cameras. They're giant round disks of light that occur due to lightning below. , but they're happening at the very top of the atmosphere [00:09:00] in the ionosphere.

So like that, like magnetic field spot. They can

Katy: that's cool looking. I'm looking at a picture right

Laura: yeah, 300 miles in diameter. But they last, they last less than a thousandth of a second. So we're never gonna see it.

Katy: Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, is that even possible to see with the

Laura: I don't think so.

Katy: Because it's so

Laura: So fast. Which, those are directly tied to these terrestrial gamma ray flashes, which is basically just energy in the form of gamma rays being shot into space from thunderstorms. Incredibly rare, and we've only noticed it with satellites, but they can actually impact the satellites. So, if a thunderstorm is happening on ground, crap's going down, but crap's also going up.

Like, it's,

Katy: I was gonna say, yeah, , I feel like we as humans, we hardly see any of the lightning that's actually, you know what I mean? We only see a

Laura: Yeah, we only see cloud to ground. I mean, sometimes, so there's cloud to cloud. There's intra cloud is within. Cloud to cloud is to, there's lots of different things

Katy: Oh, the sprites are pretty [00:10:00] cool looking

Laura: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, those are, and then the, I would say who gets the lightning prize for extreme phenomena?

 And the weirdest, Stuff happening on Earth is happening, at the Lake Maracaibo region in Venezuela. It's, it is so crazy there, it's the lightning capital of the world, because it experiences more lightning strikes than any other place on Earth. It

Katy: know why?

Laura: It's still being speculated. It's happening right at the mouth of this river, at the entrance of the lake, okay?

Katy: cursed happened

Laura: So, well, so, I mean, there's been so much speculation. There's, , is it because there's methane coming from the bog? Because, most of this is happening over top of a bog. It doesn't

Katy: Over. Okay. There's your sign right there. Like

Laura: Avoid that bog. It's clearly cursed.

Katy: somebody took a cauldron out of that bog. I'll bet my money. Now they got to return it. You got to return

Laura: it's been striking there and we're talking, this has been happening for 500 years at least. I mean it's been recorded like, 1499 [00:11:00] people are talking about this. So because it's been happening for so long and it's such a weird thing, it's got it's own name, it's Catatumbo Lightning, 

Katy: Kind of tumble.

Laura: is the name of the river, and they're not sure if it's methane, they're not sure if it's because of uranium nearby, they're not sure if it's like, something being charged, , I've also heard

Katy: that they even have all these factors that they have to consider

Laura: Don't live there. Don't live there. Yeah.

Katy: and it's like, it doesn't matter, we shouldn't be here regardless.

Laura: and, so whatever it is, it is causing a hun 365 days a year. Half that time, practically. 140 to 160 nights per year. There's light, there's thunderstorms. So just most of the time. And there can be up to 280 strikes per hour. Okay, just if you watch the images of it, it's bananas.

 That is clearly if you were a primitive people you'd be like

Katy: God hates

Laura: gods, something is involved here because yeah, [00:12:00] it's Yeah, a lot of people have died from

Katy: So, so what's there? Is there a town there or is it just in the middle of

Laura: there's like a fish I've seen pictures of like villages along the sides of the lake.

Katy: Dang.

Laura: you just accept the fact that at any moment you could be struck by lightning. 

Katy: Wonder if the people there have crazy story. You know what I mean? Like they, cause at that rate you would, everybody would have to know somebody who's gotten, you know what I mean? Yeah, that they

Laura: you imagine if it was like the United States, like the insurance premiums to

Katy: Oh my gosh.

Laura: Other

Katy: even cover it. You kidding me? That would be one of those places like how Florida, they don't cover , flood charges and stuff like, yeah, same thing there.

They just wouldn't cover it.

Laura: And that is the crazy phenomena of lightning. There's many different kinds. There's some that's more powerful than others. And there's places on the planet to avoid.

Katy: Yeah, clearly. Yeah. All righty. Well, Like Laura said, I'm going to cover all sorts of precipitation in general. And so it just rain. That's really what it is. Just different kinds of rain. So just to give you a brief [00:13:00] overview, I know everybody knows what rain is, but do you really know what rain is?

And because, again, it's one of those things that's always been around, you really stop to ever kind of just think about it. At its core, rain is simple. It begins with water, heated by the sun, evaporating into the air. This vapor rises, cools, condenses into tiny droplets, forming the clouds that float above us.

Over time, those droplets collide and grow larger, until gravity takes over and pulls them back to Earth as rain.

Laura: a great Storybots episode about this. I

Katy: Oh, storybots? Yeah.

Laura: a great episode on how rain

Katy: Yeah, there, yeah, there's a really good, yeah, that one is, any Storybots episode, honestly, is really good. But here's the thing, as normal as rain can seem, sometimes rain isn't predictable or understandable or all these different random things happen, like what if rain wasn't just water?

 And so that's what I'm going to go over is just this three [00:14:00] different types of precipitation in general that we see. So the first one I'm going to talk about is pink snow. Yeah, right? So imagine that you're hiking somewhere, you're out and about and then all of a sudden, in some polar region, of course, and I just say some, but I'm going to tell you where exactly you can find this.

 And all of a sudden you just see, it's pink, but it's more of a reddish pink. But it also, oddly enough, smells faintly like watermelon.

Laura: That's

Katy: It's,

Laura: I mean, it'd be a tall weird for me. It'd be a weird,

Katy: Brain

Laura: decision, right? Where I'd be like,

Katy: I eat

Laura: you would say absolutely don't touch that because there's something wrong with it.

Katy: But

Laura: other part about it smells so good. Smells

Katy: yeah, but also, if it smells like watermelon, does it taste like watermelon? Yeah. So the science behind pink snow, the pink color of in snow isn't a trick of the light or something, some sort of pollution, like a lot of people think. And that was the first theory around it was that, that [00:15:00] it's oh, it's just how light is reflecting off of it.

False. Then it was, , oh, that's just how the snow it's polluted. It's picking up also no false. So it's caused by a microscopic algae, primarily, how do you say this? No, trimododomus of Niveus. I don't know. Anyway, it's a type of algae and it's a very hardy little organism that thrives in some of the harshest environments on earth.

In places where, honestly, most other life struggles to survive. So what happens is during the warmer months, the algae bloom, produces a reddish pink pigment called astaxanthin.

So this pigment not only shields them from the UV damage, but also gives the snow its striking color. So you're not going to see. Like red snow, you're not, it's not going to be you know, a blood snow. It's all of a sudden the snow has landed and all of a sudden it's pink. And that's because it's the algae on, on the ground.

Laura: Okay.

Katy: [00:16:00] S thaxon or whatever it's called might sound familiar because it's the same pigment that gives shrimp, krill, or even flamingos, they're pink, pinkish and red hues.

Laura: Alright.

Katy: So where is all the pink snow found? Well, there's some of the most famous in places include the Sierra Nevada mountains here in the U. S. Hikers and mountaineers have long reported seeing pink snow during the summer months. Greenland and Antarctica. There's a lot of research that's been done to document large patches of pink snow during the summer expeditions because remember it has to be summer because of how intense the Sun has to get for it to want to protect itself.

And so it has to be summer. So think of the places in summer where snow would

Laura: still, yeah, yeah,

Katy: Yeah, so Greenland, Antarctica, and then the Italian Alps, too. So in recent years, pink snow in this region has gained attention as a sign of climate change, with scientists connecting it to increasing algal blooms because of the rising temperatures.

So we're starting to see more and more of it, because it's not a pollution, of course, because we know that, it's algae, but it's also not a good [00:17:00] thing, because,

Laura: obviously more UV is reaching Earth

Katy: yes, a lot

Laura: they need to protect themselves,

Katy: Yep, and so that's what's coming of it.

Laura: So there's no way that somebody hasn't tried this pink snow.

Katy: Oh, there's no way. I didn't come across it, but there's no way that somebody hasn't

Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because didn't we, remember how you and I, when we did I think a podcast episode and somebody, or it was a nature news thing and somebody had tried the woolly rhino that they had discovered?

Katy: Ugh, yeah.

Laura: We were like, like,

Katy: I don't remember which one that

Laura: like, a mummified, Ice Age mammal, surely someone's eating pink snow.

Katy: Oh, hands down. Yeah, somebody's Even if they, knew it or not, they were just like, Meh, let's see. Let's see what this is. Some of the research is being done behind it. Again, there's a lot because once they figured out that it's the algae, they're like, okay, we should probably study this to really see what's going on and see if it is linked to climate change and what's going on.

And the studies have started to help us understand the resilience of life and could even have implications for astrobiology. Think about how, microbes might survive on icy planets [00:18:00] or moons, if there is life if we end up finding it on other planets. Researchers are also examining the impact of pink snow on the environment.

Because the algae darkens the snow's surface, they increase its ability to absorb sunlight, speeding up melting. So yes, it's like the algae is protecting itself, but it has negative implications on the world around it. So this is particularly concerning in places like Greenland and Antarctica, where accelerated ice melt contributes to rising sea levels and a pretty alarming rate as of right now.

So a study conducted in 2020 in the Italian Alps, , linked algal blooms to changes in the microbial composition of snow, further emphasizing how these ecosystems are shifting with climate change and rapidly, because You know evolution has happened over millions of years and now these things are having to adapt and change at a much much faster rate since humans have been around. So what is the pink?

Laura: of things.

Katy: No, right? Yeah Oh, yeah, definitely much faster. So while pink snow might be stunning to look at [00:19:00] it's not really just a pretty picture It's darker hue absorbs more sunlight Like I said than regular white snow causing it to melt faster and this creates a feedback loop So this cycle just poses a serious threat to any glacier and polar ecosystems around the world.

So . Pink snow might seem like a modern curiosity, but it's been observed for centuries. Aristotle himself noted its existence back in ancient Greece. Later polar explorers, reported seeing pink or red snow during their expeditions, added to the lore and mystery surrounding this phenomenon of what it was.

And some cultures have even attached myths to its appearance, interpreting it as a sign of good fortune or an omen, because it used to be very rare. Not so much today, because today, while we understand the science behind it, pink snow So it definitely is interesting and people definitely flock to these areas once they find out that it happens, but it's not necessarily an all around good thing right [00:20:00] now.

So the pink snow is a vivid reminder that even though, some of the most extreme environments on earth are alive and it's cool to see that life and that life can live there, it really is also a warning sign because those ecosystems are alive. Are at times a lot more vulnerable than other places because there's there isn't a whole lot of life in these cold cold areas And so whenever they're being I don't know affected as quickly and as visibly quickly as they are that's not really a good thing at

Laura: Yeah, it's just another niche ecosystem. Like,

Katy: Very much

Laura: a niche ecosystem and doesn't do well if there's change.

Katy: Yeah, no, absolutely not. And so those, again, it's an indicator ecosystem. You know, you have indicator species, frogs and stuff that are normally the first ones to show signs of , hey, this is good or bad whenever things are changing. It's like an indicator ecosystem if there was such a thing. So that's, Pink Snow.

Laura: All right, I'll take us in kind of the opposite direction from snow. My next weather phenomena [00:21:00] is a haboob, which is such a

Katy: Haboobs. A good haboob. You right?

Laura: Most of us have seen a sandstorm, in a movie, in some way, whether it be, like, The Mummy Returns, or The Mummy, or

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: one of those, , but,

Katy: That was a good haboob in that movie.

Laura: one.

 Well, this is, this is the true name for such an event, dust storm, sandstorm, haboop, same thing. It comes from an Arabic word, which means strong winds or blasting. And they typically occur in desert regions of Northern Africa, the Middle East, which okay, you're expecting, and then, but also the Southwest United States.

 So just because it sounds like something that happens in the, somewhere else, and then it's an Arabic word, does not mean that the phenomena doesn't also happen here. 

Katy: We just had one last

Laura: Yeah, 

Katy: week, straight up. Like it was, it's so, yeah, we just had a terrifying, cause it was after the crazy storm and all, and it, then West Texas is so dry and it kicked up all the dust [00:22:00] our way. You could be a few miles from the downtown and you couldn't, you couldn't see it at all.

It was, it was crazy. And then as fast as they came, gone.

Laura: Yeah. How did they form, and what are they? I you hear that word, but you're like, okay. Most of the time it starts with a thunderstorm. So it's good that I'm talking about this second. , thunderstorms, besides all the electricity that they're causing, they're also causing a lot of winds.

But it's not just like a blowing wind, okay, it's specifically, a thunderstorm creates some really serious downdrafts because of temperature changes. And so, imagine I'm dumping a bucket of water. onto the sand, okay? And so that splash is going to hit and then immediately whoosh, fan out in every direction.

 That's called a gust front. As it smashes into the air, smashes into earth, creates this intense wind. It's hitting the ground hard, and it's gonna pick up any loose dust, sand, or any other debris on the ground. This isn't as possible in wetter [00:23:00] climates, like out here in the East, because

Katy: guys have rain. Yeah.

Laura: the soil is more compact, things are held together.

 The more dusty and dry things are, the more likely this is to happen. It

Katy: more haboobs.

Laura: the more haboobs, the more, you need these dry, loose particles for it to work. So the gust front picks up all the particles and forms a giant wall, like whoosh,

Katy: It is,

Laura: a giant wall. That can be several thousand feet high, and miles long.

 Really, these gust fronts always happen with storms, we just don't see it, they're invisible out here in the east, you still feel the wind, but you don't see it until it's picking up these particles. And they, these dust storms can form in as little as 30 minutes, making them really unpredictable, cause you're just, they just form so quickly and get so serious so quickly, it's just hard to know what to do.

Katy: Yeah. Cause I mean like the one here, you could still see, a couple of miles, so it wasn't like a, , some place like Middle East and everything where it's you can't see your hand in front of your face kind of conditions. It [00:24:00] wasn't like that, like a standstorm, but it was bad enough that it definitely had an effect, but yeah, not, not Hey, I can't drive.

At least not here. I know a little bit West of, the DFW area. There were some areas that people had to pull over and stuff because it was way worse.

Laura: and you don't have much warning about it, 

Katy: yeah, yeah. They were predicting that this was probably gonna happen, just because, again, we're like, hey, this

Laura: Thunderstorms

Katy: the perfect conditions, yeah, we have the perfect conditions for it, but, so just FYI.

Laura: thunderstorm, could lead to this. So the, what's so bad about them, , a few things. Strong winds, typically these winds are from 50 to 60, but it can also reach up to 70 miles per hour, so that's like hurricane force winds. Causing and, blowing over trees and so also pushing all that dust, which causes the storm to move very quickly.

 Like I said, they're unpredictable and can travel for actually pretty long distances. It doesn't have to be like in and out. It can be lingering. Visibility can drop to almost zero, which can be super dangerous [00:25:00] for anyone traveling in a vehicle or on foot. And then of course the dust can cause severe respiratory issues.

You can't be choking on that stuff, especially in today's, in the modern world where it's not even just

Katy: her, boob. Yeah.

Laura: Yeah, you get, it's not even just dust anymore, right? Imagine, like, all the heavy metal, we've just got so much crap in our soil. It's just, it's not a good thing. What are some of the worst haboobs in history? One of the worst in modern history was in 2011 in Phoenix. It's not that rare for this to happen in Phoenix, apparently.

I kept reading about different, worst case, worst one, worst one, Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: In 2011, this one was 100 miles wide. So it was just a wall, 100 miles wide, several thousand feet high, 60 mile an hour winds, and nobody could see anything for several hours. But it had long term impacts for several days.

It's just horrible. And then [00:26:00] perhaps one of the most famous, at least in the United States where Katy and I are, is, it's called Black Sunday, which happened on April 14th, 1945. So this happened in Oklahoma. It formed in Oklahoma and reached to Texas in the panhandle of Texas, and it was again like 60 mile an hour winds.

There was so much debris and dust. It actually turned dark, on that, during the day, and people could not see their hand in front of their faces. It was so traumatic, people actually thought it was the end of the world, filling people's lungs and houses and everything.

And songs are written about this, and that, the next day, when this was reported on, they said, the Dust Bowl, , this was the start of the Dust Bowl.

Katy: Oh, interesting. Okay, okay.

Laura: Black Sunday was, like, the day that we finally named the phenomena of what was happening over there, which was This, we had totally trashed the soil from farming and farming and taking and taking and taking and taking.

And it was just all [00:27:00] dust. That was the start. And of course, also , it was right after the Great Depression. It just was not, it was a bad situation. So yeah, haboobs. If you are caught in something like that, you should pull over. , turn your vents off so they're not sucking in from the outside.

 Secure your windows, things like that.

Katy: The worst one here as far as dust wise, for us, it's definitely not classified as a Haboob. But every year in Texas we get the Sahara sands that come over. Let me tell ya, okay, we do get Haboobs here. However, like I said, they're not horrible. they're bad enough, but they're not bad bad.

That Sahara sand though, causes allergies. At least my allergies, I know several people that every time, to the point where whenever I see it in the news, I text my employees, cause I'm like, here come those Sahara sands, cause it happens every year. And it just carries so much pollen and then just dumps it in our area that we're all like Benadryl, like more Benadryl.

Cause it is [00:28:00] so bad and, even whenever that last Haboob hit last week, I mean it's still, I mean I'm not gonna go for a run in it. You know what I mean? Cause you can definitely tell a difference, . Alrighty, Haboob. I don't have, I don't really have a good segue cause I'm talking about blood rain next.

Yes.

Laura: Well, okay, no, I got your segue,

Katy: You always do have a good segway,

Laura: It's the ADHD, I'm like the mummy.

Katy: Okay, okay,

Laura: in the mummy there's the giant sandstorm wall and then plagues of Egypt.

Katy: Yep, boom, plagues of Egypt. Alright, blood rain. So rain is supposed to be clear and refreshing, right? Nope, sometimes it's just not. So, , let's go ahead and talk a little bit about the signs and same kind of, I'm hitting for the most part the same different categories that I talked about. So despite its dramatic name, blood rain isn't a supernatural event. It's not blood. It's red color comes from tiny particles of sand or dust often carried over long distances by strong [00:29:00] winds. So very similar to Laura's Haboob.

These particles mix with rain clouds and tint the rain as it falls to earth. But those ancient times didn't know that of course. So they just knew, It's raining blood. Yeah, this is a plague. Here come the grasshoppers and crickets next, kind of thing. One of the most common sources of this phenomenon is the Sahara Desert.

Winds can lift vast amounts of fine reddish sand high into the atmosphere where it travels across continents, and then when the dust laden air mixes with the rain bearing clouds, the result precipitation takes on a reddish hue, creating what is called flood rain. So while the red coloration is most common, similar phenomenon can also produce yellow or brown rain, which would be horrible if it was just like Yeah, right?

Laura: ugh.

Katy: Yeah. Depending on the type of dust or particles present in the atmosphere, that obviously dictates what, , what the color is going to be.

Laura: Yeah.

Katy: So where and when is blood rain found? Blood rain is most [00:30:00] frequently reported in regions downwind of large deserts or areas with fine reddish soil. Some notable causes is southern Europe.

Blood rain periodically, it rains blood rain periodically in Spain, Italy, and Greece due to the Saharan dust carried across the Mediterranean by prevailing winds. India, in 2001, the Indian state of Kerala experienced a famous episode of blood rain that lasted for weeks, drawing worldwide attention and sparking a lot of scientific debate about them.

, in the United States it often happens here too, it's often less dramatic, but again in the American Southwest because of something like the HUBU, whenever those collide with rain clouds, and then it falls, I haven't seen blood rain in Texas since I've been here,

Laura: that'd be freaking cool though.

Katy: there's always a chance,

Laura: Yeah!

Katy: I'm not, I'm not hoping for it, but, so you're saying there's a chance, if I can freaking see a painted bunting one day, I can see blood rain down here for crying out loud.

 So blood rain has fascinated scientists and [00:31:00] historians alike. While we now understand its connection to airborne dust and sand, earlier theories were far less grounded in science. For centuries blood rain, like we said earlier, was considered an omen of war, disaster, or divine punishment. Okay, could you just imagine though the rain comes.

It doesn't matter what's going on in the world. Somebody is like it's time for war You know what? I mean? Like it's just Dust that's been picked up and somebody is like it's war

Laura: I, well, and then you'd be , part of the people are like, it's a Cold War, and everybody else is like, everybody hide, we're all, yeah, this is it, this is end times.

Katy: Yep, so modern research has focused on analyzing the chemical and biological content of blood rain. In many cases, scientists have found that the red coloration comes not just from dust, but also the presence of iron oxide.

Laura: gonna say, it's gotta be the iron. If you've got iron in your soil, for sure it's gonna be making blood rain.

Katy: And this is the same compound that gives Mars its red hue.

Laura: Or if we've ever seen those amazing there's that amazing I feel like we've talked about it before. In Antarctica, there's that [00:32:00] blood falls.

Katy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura: incredible. If not, we need to.

Katy: Yeah, we should. So the blood rain's impact on earth, while blood rain is fairly rare, it's environmental impact can be significant. The dust particles carried in this rain often contain nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, which can fertilize soil and boost plant growth.

However, these same particles can also carry pollutants or harmful microorganisms, posing risks to water quality and ecosystems. So it's kind of like a double edged sword, it could do good, but because of the chemicals and everything we have, it can also be pretty, pretty bad too. Blood rain has been documented for thousands of years, like we said, often interpreted either as good or bad.

For example, in Homer's Iliad, Zeus causes a blood rain as a warning of the slaughter to come on the battlefield, which is again, it gives rise to what a lot of people were thinking that's. We need to go to war because that story was carried through centuries. [00:33:00] While there's no evidence that blood rain has directly sparked a war, which I thought was interesting, it's often played into existing tensions and fears.

Communities might interpret the phenomenon as divine signal to prepare for conflict, or confirmation that their worst anxiety is about an impending crisis. So, it's kind of wherever So,

Laura: Who

Katy: yeah, it's kind of like whatever your pre existing thoughts are, you just look at that as a sign of whatever you're already thinking.

So if it's like, hey, you know what? , I should probably quit my job because this just isn't good. And then all of a sudden started blood raining, I'd be like, yeah, I should probably quit what I'm doing. Yeah. Right. So blood rain is one of the most interesting phenomenon that reminds us how interconnected our planet is.

Dust from the desert in Africa can travel for thousands of miles. Like I said, it ends up here every year. Mixing with rain and other parts of the world to create something that seems interesting, magical, has a whole lot of stories, around it throughout the centuries. Yeah, that's, Blood Rain.

And the next one is even [00:34:00] weirder than the first two that I talked about. So, on that cliffhanger, Laura.

Laura: Alright, well, mine is still a biblical plague a little bit. Or at least it would seem like it. And I chose to do this last because I also think this is the most sensitive topic because this one has led to a lot of people dying. And this is firestorms. So wildfires are bad enough, and it's like, you know, L.

A. is still burning, it's a

Katy: You're right.

Laura: pretty hot topic. But when they're totally massive, they can actually create their own weather. So, to form, a firestorm needs, pretty much like any fire, it needs fuel, heat, and wind. The fuel can be any sort of dry vegetation, so these are typically occurring when there has been a drought. Heat from the wildfire can become so hot that it creates strong updrafts. So warm air rises, creates these really strong updrafts. As the hot air rises, cool air falls rapidly, creating [00:35:00] wind, creating these like circular wind patterns.

Katy: Terrifying.

Laura: The hotter the air, the faster the air rises and falls, and the stronger wind it creates.

So this is a self feeding mechanism, just like we talked about before. As the flames are made hotter, Or the flames get hotter from the more oxygen they get, and the hotter that they get, the higher the winds go and the more oxygen they're making. So it's just 

Katy: Yep.

Laura: going so crazy. So how hot? Firestorms can reach 1, 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is so hot that it can fracture rock, ignite metal and asphalt, and cause plants to spontaneously combust.

Katy: That's insane.

Laura: hot.

Katy: So my Master's in Park and Resource Management, and Laura and I went to the same grad school, and we did a whole section on within national parks and everything, fighting, , these, the same, these things that you're talking about, and then just fires in general, and just how quickly they can, and we're seeing about so much, unfortunately, in the news in recent years.

But just about how terrifying these things [00:36:00] are because it can be so fast, so unpredictable, and so devastating so

Laura: and this is where it gets to the point of okay, you've got a wildfire and wildfires can be fought, but in these self feeding systems, this is actually something that you can't do anything

about. It has to just burn out. You can't beat something that's 1, 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the winds are so severe you can't get there with any kind of equipment.

And metal ignites, what are you gonna do? Take in equipment? , pfft, it just burns.

Katy: ends up coming down to planes, planes dropping. But even then, like you 

Laura: the wind is too bad, it can't do it.

Katy: yeah.

Laura: So the winds can reach a hundred miles per hour. This is an out of control, system. , it not only fans the flames but also causes the fires to rush forward at a hundred miles per hour. Just devouring everything in its path, and starts smaller fires elsewhere because of those embers are just going all around the place.

These wind and flame patterns can cause a fire whirl, which is essentially a fire tornado. So you can just see, [00:37:00] tornadoes within it. Um,

Katy: Talk about stopping it?

Laura: No, I was not going to.

Katy: Cause I remember we kinda went over some of this. And so they said like the only way to really stop it is because of what Laura just said. How it is , it's so hot, it's so crazy. You can't just throw water, so that's whenever.

They do things like they make fire breaks, they try to contain it and they control

Laura: Right, get ahead. If you can get far enough ahead, yeah, you can do something.

Katy: but then again the winds change and that's why wildfires are so scary because those winds can change so quickly and so you can try as hard as you can to get ahead of it, but , you just never know.

So it just says , yes, , it's using a mixture of water and fire, retardant. Which again, it's just more chemicals, PFOS, because I know that's a huge thing, that EPA has been focusing on is PFOS and waterways and what a huge one that PFOS is found in is fire retardants.

And so it's like a good thing, but at the same time, it's like. It is having a really big effect on our waterways and stuff. So yeah, it's just, they said they'd stop, but it's [00:38:00] just coordinating, dampening things ahead of it, so that hopefully everything, by the time it gets there, everything is so 

Laura: cut down like a huge swath of trees so

Katy: Yep, or yeah, do fire breaks. Yeah. Yep.

Laura: Nuts. I wanted to talk about, we can imagine what kind of impact that has. But firestorms can be caused Both naturally and artificially, and I wanted to talk about two, , that we've seen some terrible things happen.

So of course, I talked in the, my first section about how those positively charged lightning strikes are like a major culprit of wildfires. That, I'm actually not sure that's how this one started, but the most deadly U. S. forest fire storm was the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 in north, , northeast Wisconsin.

It actually happened the same night as the Great Chicago Fire, so it doesn't usually get talked about because that's way more publicized.

Katy: right?

Laura: bad luck? Burning night? What the heck?

Katy: Right? [00:39:00] Yeah.

Laura: It, 1. 2 to 1. 5 million acres burned. And more than 1, 200 people died.

Katy: Many? 1, 200?

Laura: 200. So that's a lot of people.

Katy: Yeah, cuz back then you didn't,

Laura: You couldn't call your neighbor and say, Hey, go, go, go, go, right?

Katy: there was no warning. Yeah, dang.

Laura: it's, it was a true firestorm where it's thrushing and melting every, , so

that's like a, that's a forest one, but one that was, and that one, people don't know how it started.

Was it a lightning strike? Was it somebody who dropped a cigarette? I mean, who knows, but one that was definitely started by. Is, so the most deadly firestorm ever, on record, anywhere, occurred in Tokyo in 1945.

Katy: Mm hmm.

Laura: so the U. S. dropped 1600 tons of incendiary bombs on the city to weaken Japan's war efforts.

It's a lot of incendiary bombs. So the bombs dropped they were super hot They started creating these updrafts and then it [00:40:00] just that self feeding system and 16 square miles of the city were destroyed over 250, 000 Buildings burned and over 100, 000 people died

Katy: How much is that is bomb versus the fire store, 

Laura: it would be very hard to tell at first right so but definitely it caused the buildings

Katy: made it the situation

Laura: all around it. Fire storms are Definitely the most scary one in my opinion. Because it's kind of like a tsunami and there's no getting out of the way

Katy: No, there's just not yeah, and that's where it's preventative So if they tell you to evacuate, we know people don't want to , you know evacuate their home. I can't imagine Trying to make that decision and but at the same time, that's going to end up being your life.

Something a firestorm that can kick up fairly unpredictably. There's like you said, like there's no way there's no standing a chance in that. It's going to burn your home and that means, , if you hold your ground, that's you too. There's so you gotta you gotta get out of the way.

So if they tell you to evacuate, [00:41:00] there's typically typically a reason for 

Laura: And we're just seeing so many more of these firestorms occurring only because of one, climate change, so more drought in certain areas. Certain areas are just made to burn, like Chaparral, like that was bound to happen. But when, but, If the debris, the more we prevent wildfires, the more debris builds up, and then when one happens, it's got extra fuel.

It's like we dumped fuel

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So instead of managing, , it then immediately comes out of control. I think that this is gonna be, unfortunately, a more and more and more problem, which we even saw here in the Appalachians. In the Smoky Mountains, there was a

huge, I mean, that wasn't necessarily a fire, that was not a firestorm, that was just a wildfire, but

Katy: But still, we're seeing them more and more, and let's see here, I graduated grad school in, I graduated college in 11, grad school in 16, and so even, okay, so 2016, so not quite 10 years ago. And I remember reading that, like I said, reading , the chapter, on wildfires and being like, you hear, about [00:42:00] wildfires, but even whenever I was in that class, it was your typical places every so often, maybe , a couple of California that would make the news Colorado, you would hear about, , but it wasn't where it's constant and it wasn't where it's all these places.

I mean,

Laura: Or impacting so far and wide, , I remember like, when the Canadian wildfires were happening just a few years ago, we couldn't go outside because the smoke in the

Katy: so bad. Yeah, and

Laura: And that's a fire, that, those were firestorms too. They couldn't, they were out of control.

Katy: Yeah, and that's not saying like it's getting worse. And so for people to look at that and think that, again, global warming , Al Gore was the one that started saying that, and he says to this day that he wishes he never would have made that so popular, because it is, it's climate change, it's changing, , and we're definitely, not helping it, so. , if only we lived in a country that could, , I don't know, fund a research on science and help these help us to understand these kind of things, it'd be so much [00:43:00] easier. But was that all you had for Firestorms?

Laura: firestorms. Terrifying. Just terrifying. Ha ha

Katy: I'm gonna talk about one that is probably terrifying if you were ancient Egypt. But nowadays,

Laura: Just

Katy: now what?

Laura: Just freaky.

Katy: Yeah, freaky. It's just like weird. People are not as we just be like, what? And not that's going to be animal rains. So anything it's raining, whatever. So we've talked about pink snow. We talked about blood rain, but what if the sky opened up and instead of raindrops, fish started falling, frogs, spiders, even

Laura: okay. Okay. I actually i'm not even afraid of spiders anymore, but if it was raining spiders

Katy: No, if it was raining. Yeah. I'm not afraid of spider, but if it was

Laura: Rainy

Katy: hell no. Like no. No, no thank you. So throughout history, reports of creatures suddenly plummeting from the sky have popped up all over the world. So imagine stepping again outside to check the weather, only to be greeted by a downpour of fish.

 I'd be like, what [00:44:00] the heck?

Laura: it depends on how fresh they were too, right? Like how fresh are these fish?

Katy: I mean, fairly fresh. , but like the frogs and the spiders would definitely probably hit the ground running. The spiders would anyway. So the science behind animal rain, it's as bizarre as it sounds, scientists have studied animal rain, not just to confirm that it happens, but to understand the exact mechanisms behind it.

While no one has ever actually witnessed animals being carried up into the sky, which is interesting. 

Laura: interesting 

Katy: Yeah, 

Laura: It's just aliens messing with us, dude

Katy: right? So that, but we see, so people have seen them falling, but nobody has seen them getting sucked up somewhere, you know?

Laura: Yeah, you'd think with all of our, at this point, weather satellites, that you would see, water spout sucking fish

Katy: Like a vacuum.

Yeah, Well, they can see where it is, but it's not like they can track the Fauna being sucked up into it, you know what I mean?

Laura: need, we need little drones all on that. I need to

Katy: You right? Yeah, right. So let's just talk about, [00:45:00] some real life cases and then I'll go down into what these actually are. So animal rain has been spotted, reported across the world and in some places it's even fairly often expected.

So here's

Laura: Expected! It's a Tuesday thing, man.

Katy: all

Laura: It's like, what do you mean expected? Every Tuesday is fish day.

Katy: Thursdays we have frogs. Fridays is spiders.

No. But because it happens so often, it's it's not People are like, here it comes again. Alright,

Laura: an umbrella that can take heavier impact than normal.

Katy: Is it fish or rain? You gotta just wait till it flops onto the ground to see. So there's fish rain often documented in Honduras, and they call it the rain of fish, an event that reportedly happens every year in Euro Honduras. Locals claim that after heavy rains, heavy rainstorms, the ground is littered with live fish, for this one is live.

So scientists believe that this could [00:46:00] be due to water sprouts or strong updrafts, similar to what Laura is saying, from storms pulling fish from nearby rivers and dumping them onto the land. So that one doesn't even have a year, because it just happens All the time,

Laura: the time.

Katy: so they're, they're pretty

Laura: Dude, live flopping fish, man, can you imagine? You'd be like, sweet! Just going out, collecting fish, especially in, places,

Katy: Yeah. Well, and if they're alive, if they're alive, then it's fresh. Yeah. So frog rain in Serbia in 2005, which I don't know. I've never really thought oh, yeah, frog, serbia. That makes no, I never would be Yeah, serbia is the place they have raining frogs amazon i'd be like, oh, yeah, okay, not serbia So in 2005 villagers in ozdaki Serbia were caught off guard obviously When tiny frogs started raining down from the 

Laura: Thankfully we're tiny.

Katy: Yeah, right, you know, just like bullfrogs.

Yeah, pfft, yeah. Uh, Pierre, the return of Pierre and T Nom. Ha ha ha ha. R. I. P. Pierre, Pierre and T [00:47:00] Nom. If you guys have no idea what we're talking about, but go back and listen to the Cosmic Critters from last week, yeah. Of talking about, yeah, Cosmic Critters and N Frogs. Anyway, Pierre and T Nom. In Serbia though, no one saw a tornado, but meteorologists suspect strong winds scooped them up somehow with a group of amphibians and carried

Laura: enough spot of frogs to even

Katy: Apparently and so it carried them,

Laura: awesome frog bog in

Katy: yeah, right?

In Serbia, apparently, yeah. And it carried them over the town before dropping them, just nature confetti, I guess. Spider Reign, of course in Australia, like where else would Right, Australia. So that was 2015. So if Australia wasn't already home to enough nightmare fuel in 2000, and I love Australia, but in 2015, parts of New South Wales experienced a rain of tiny spiders.

This phenomenon known as ballooning happens when spiders use silk to catch the wind and travel long distances. [00:48:00] Normally it's an isolated event, but sometimes Thousands of them decide to take flight at once, creating a horrifying illusion that it's raining spiders. So this one isn't necessarily that they're like, sucked up.

Yeah, it's, but it looks like it because they're be, they're catching wind to travel long distances. And when thousands upon thousands of them do them all at the same time, they do get pretty high and then they start dropping. No, thank you. Then another interesting one happened in 2015. I don't know what would happen in 2015, cause that's when Australia had this crazy spider rain.

In Norway, warm rain. Yeah. In 2015, a biology teacher in Norway reported finding worms scattered all over the snow covered ground. At first, he thought they had crawled up from the earth, but nope, these worms appeared to have fallen from the sky. Then other people started coming forward, being like, Did you see?

Did you see? Did you see? And it was raining fro or raining worms. Strong winds are the likely [00:49:00] culprit, but again, and, they're thinking that, lifting the worms up and carrying them before Dropping them where people are, so, right? So, the physics of animal rain, alright. Now that we've seen kind of how the different events have taken place, let's break down a little bit of the science behind it, or rather the physics, I should say, behind why it happens.

So, meteorologists have long suspected that water spouts and strong updrafts are responsible for these strange events, but researchers have taken it a step further by analyzing wind speeds and storm patterns where animal rains have occurred. One study published in the Journal of Meteorology examined water spouts in regions where fish rain had frequently reported, confirming that these storms are definitely powerful enough to lift any small aquatic animals into the air.

Dr. Ernst Aggie, right, an atmospheric scientist at Purdue University, calculated that a strong water spout could lift objects as heavy as four pounds, which would be the size of a small fish or a [00:50:00] frog or even a small chihuahua if you got lucky. and carry them for miles before they fell back onto the ground.

Other studies on tornadoes have shown that debris, like building materials, even vehicles can be carried dozens of miles. So that's not too much of a stretch to think the same concept could happen with frogs and fish and things. So analyzing the animals themselves, though, is some researchers have taken a more hands on approach by analyzing the animals that do fall from the sky.

In cases of fish rain, scientists have collected specimens to determine whether they were species found in nearby bodies of water or they transported from farther away. In multiple cases, the fish have been discovered still alive, meaning that they weren't dropped from too high or too far. Really tough fish. In 2017, the biologists studying the events in Honduras Took samples of the fish that rained down in Euro. Their analysis found that the fish were freshwater species, but oddly, they weren't [00:51:00] from any nearby rivers. This suggests that they might have been pulled from underground water sources, raising even more questions about how the heck they got there in the first place.

Laura: Trolling aliens.

Katy: Right? Yeah, they're just like, this will mess with them. And again, so that was 2015 was the first one I talked about in Honduras. So in 2017 is whenever they were like, maybe these are, cause they were found from like an underground water system. We've talked a few different times about fish that you've, yeah, found out in aquifers, which is crazy.

For the cases of frogs and spider rain, scientists have also looked at, whether mass migration events could play a role. And in some instances, large groups of amphibians may already have been moving across an area. When southern weather events just sucked them up, displaced them, whatever.

This means that some reports of animal rain, quote unquote, might just be a really bad timing case instead of just rain. So heavy rains causing flood of creatures at the exact moment people happen to just look [00:52:00] outside kind of

Laura: Oh, right, so they're not falling from the sky, but they're, they're, they're, they're, like,

Katy: They're there and so people are like, how the heck else could they have, they must have fallen from the sky kind of thing, yeah. Animal rain has definitely been reported for centuries, and historical records show that people have always just been baffled by it. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, which also, hilarious name, Pliny the Elder, wrote about storms that showered fish in ancient Greece and the 19th century France, where multiple reports of frog rains were witnessed by entire towns.

One of the earliest recorded studies on animal reigns was conducted by 19th century French naturalist André Marie Ampierre, who suggested that strong winds were lifting animals from their habitats and carrying them from long distances before just depositing them elsewhere. His theory was met with skepticism at the time, because like back then, 19th century, nobody's going to believe him, but modern meteorology has largely confirmed his [00:53:00] suspicion.

In 1919, the Ameri Scientific American article detailed a case in Shreveport, Louisiana, where hundreds of fish fell from the sky during a rainstorm. Witnesses described the fish as perfectly fresh, some even still flopping around. So again, it's just been throughout history that this has happened, whether it's actual rain or not.

We definitely still don't have all of the answers, like, where are all these fish coming from in Honduras and things. But one thing's for sure, if it starts raining frogs outside, it's not a plague. We're not in ancient Egypt. We can use science to, figure out what this is. It's just gonna take a little bit more of a understanding after some time.

So that's animal rain.

Laura: Wow. I do have nature news. I just, I remembered I read this, which totally ties into this entire week. 

Okay, so here is some, it's not like new nature news. This actually happened 150 years ago, but it's the [00:54:00] anniversary of the event.

Okay?

Katy: think, Laura, let's refresh what news me. No, go ahead.

Laura: I'm just really late to the party. No, it's the anniversary of it. So, let us remember the anniversary of the Great Kentucky Meat Shower.

Katy: Oh,

Laura: first of all, is such a great name for something. The Great Kentucky Meat Shower. That happened in, it's 1876, so in, in Kentucky in 1876, there was a woman, I'm reading this from an article, , this one I'm getting from W.

A. T. E. 6, but there's a whole bunch of articles on this, there was a lady outside making soap when all of a sudden large chunks of flesh fell from the sky, yeah, just, a literal meat shower,

Katy: , I get, , fish, frogs, animal wise, I'd be like, but at the same time, just like,

Laura: chunks of meat? Yeah, yeah, I'd be freaking out, dude. Everyone was, like, no idea. And it wasn't even just, it wasn't even just this lady you saw, neighbors saw it too the [00:55:00] owner's, owner woman's husband said the meat fell like large snowflakes. Which also makes it seem like it's not plopping, but , I, I don't, I

Katy: looked outside and saw gently falling chunks of meat.

Laura: a whole bunch of people came out to investigate. They made, one person made note of the meat sticking out of fences and scattered across the ground.

Katy: Ugh.

Laura: them were about 5 by 5 centimeters, but one was, 10 square centimeters, which is a giant chunk of meat.

Katy: Yeah,

Laura: And it seemed pretty fresh.

So Two other men who remained unidentified turned up and taste tested the meat reign.

Katy: of course.

Laura: they did. which they were like, this is either venison or mutton. So either deer or sheep is what they said. But some doctor like took it back.

Katy: Leave it to a dude, that's all I'm gonna say. Leave it to a dude to taste

Laura: One doctor took it back and analyzed [00:56:00] it and he's this is lung tissue from either, either from a horse or an infant.

Which is like, just like escalated that. Like either, it's either

Katy: is either, this is either cow, or yeah. Yeah. This guy's looking at, no, no, no, I think it's, I think it's horse. Or the blood of our infants. Like, jeez.

Laura: Some, some person, it says a man, analyzed some of the

Katy: Also, wait, hold on. Pause. Can you imagine how many baby lungs that would

Laura: That's what I'm saying. That's a lot of baby lungs.

Katy: So, so many baby lungs.

Laura: Somebody, somebody who analyzed some of the preserved meat specimens said it might not be actually meat, but it's, like gelatinous bacteria called witch's butter, which I have actually heard of,

Katy: Okay, okay.

Laura: star slubber.

Katy: names. Yeah. All such great, horrible 

names. 

Laura: Okay, it says, a pair of histologists later analyzed seven of the [00:57:00] specimens and found two to be lung tissue, two were made of cartilage, and three were more muscular tissue. Somebody was like, this is just vulture vomit.

Katy: Ew. Yeah.

Laura: like, that's a lot of puke. I 

Katy: Yeah, but also still baby, better than baby lungs. I mean,

Laura: , somebody, somebody else, he set fire to it and it smelled like sheep mutton. Disgorgement that were sailing over the spot, like multiple vultures just barfing just everywhere.

Katy: they just, can you imagine they all, Hey guys, this is the spot. Okay. Ready? Just ever all at 

Laura: That's, they're like, this is the only explanation because it's such a variety of tissues. My immediate thought, though, was like, some tornado just blended an animal. , you never, no, but , you never know. Those crazy winds can do stuff. , so, I mean, it's still, still kind of unknown.

Katy: Did they debunk the baby meat though? [00:58:00] Just,

Laura: of the preserved meat in a little glass bottle. So yeah, don't, let us never, let us never forget the 1876 Kentucky meat shower.

Katy: baby, chunks of babies,

oh, goodness, alright guys, make sure you go check us out on Patreon and YouTube, I've been uploading the videos if you want to see Laura and I, our faces. As, as we do these episodes, we've been uploading them onto YouTube. If you go support us on Patreon, that definitely helps us to pay for all the stuff to be able to help bring this to you guys week after week.

So we definitely appreciate anybody who can help us out there. And I upload like a lot of shorts and everything onto YouTube, too, which are pretty, pretty fun to watch as well.

Laura: Taking this out of context is pretty amazing.

Katy: Yeah, no, the amount of context, I feel like it, it's funny when I'm going through and editing and stuff, it's funny, but then out of context to me, it's way funnier.

Way, way funnier. 

So. Like I said, go [00:59:00] check us out on YouTube and Patreon. Until next week, we'll talk to you guys then.