You've heard of times when it's been 'raining cats and dogs' or even 'raining men', but we're guessing you've never heard of the time when we had 'seafood rain'. Yeah, didn't think so.



That's the phrase that started doing the rounds on social media in China when sea creatures including octopus and starfish started raining down onto cars in a coastal city. Not kidding - we're not even exaggerating.

Credit: AsiaWire

'Seafood rain' became a trending topic when photos surfaced of scenes in Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province, where sea creatures were seen stuck to car windscreens after a rain storm.

Advert

According to the Qingdao Meteorological Administration, the area's violent and extreme weather was recorded on 13 June in the late afternoon.

It included hurricane-force winds blowing at 34.8m/s, registering as a 12 on the Beaufort scale, which measures wind speeds. The wind was so forceful, in fact, that the QMA said wind speeds generated during the storm set a new all-time record for June.

The aggressive winds were coupled with hail, causing widespread destruction throughout the city... including throwing octopus, starfish, shrimp and molluscs about and slapping them on car windows.

Advert

Why it happened isn't exactly clear, but it's thought that the storm also caused waterspouts in the Yellow Sea - which could explain how the creatures were thrown onto the city streets.

Credit: AsiaWire

Credit: AsiaWire

And while it's been raining seafood over in China, one bloke in Kent recently had a similarly baffling experience with marine life turning up in places it shouldn't - after he spotted a shark in his garden while he was brewing up.

Advert

Quite how the dogfish, which is a member of the shark family, managed to find its way to his garden remains a mystery, though it's thought the creature might have been fumbled by a passing bird, who was carrying it in its claws.

"I had been making a cup of tea when my dad came in looking a bit perplexed," said James, a 26-year-old from Whitstable who works part-time as a coast guard.

"He said to me, 'What's the British shark commonly found in the UK - the shark that is two foot long and has a sloped nose? Because there's one in the back garden'. I was really shocked. My feet are size ten, so this beast is a good two feet long.

"The fella was still in pretty good condition, but had been dead for a couple of days. I prodded it before carrying on with the day. It's just the silliest thing to try and explain to someone: 'Oh yeah, I was making a cup of tea and a shark fell from the sky into my garden'.

Advert

"Luckily it's only a smaller species. I think it had been picked up by an ambitious cormorant, which dropped it. The bird's neck probably hurt or it has been hassled by gulls and let go."