When I was doing my research for the bird event in Beebe, one of the theories discussed was the possibility of a tornado as the cause.  That led me to do research on tornadoes and what kind of destruction and weird things that can happen when a tornado hits.  I read articles, looked in books, and contacted the National Weather Service in Little Rock, and some other places too.  Tornadoes are part of meteorology which is related to weather which is related to the environment, the people, plants, and animals in the environment, which is all related to geography!

I have seen the question quite often, “Can it really rain…frogs and fish?”  The answer is, well,  yes, in a sense.  Although, it is not raining these objects from the clouds like the precipitation we see in the form of rain and snow.  The winds from a tornado are put on a scale, just like an earthquake uses a scale to measure destruction.  Winds can range from 40 to over 300 miles per hour on the F scale, short for Fujita Scale, because he was one of the people who helped develop it.  This is important because this scale is based on the destruction caused by tornadic winds to structures such as buildings and homes built by humans, and ties into geography for this very reason.

There are stories of cars and animals as big as horses being airlifted and relocated when the winds subside.  If a tornado occurs over water, it is called a water spout.  If it is powerful enough it can suck up the water and anything in it…fish, frogs, turtles, birds and so on, and carry them far away, and again, when the winds subside, they drop where they are.  This could be a parking lot or miles from the nearest pond or lake.  And it can happen anywhere a tornado or really bad winds have occurred.

If this interested you, I suggest you go to the library, the internet, or contact your local meteorologist or weather service station to find out more.  Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas of your own, I would love to hear them!  You can email me at EOU2012@gmail.com  And remember…Geography is Everywhere!