Said to be large enough to “swallow a boat,” the Lake Texoma vortex seen below is actually the result of intentional draining due to high water levels following Texas’s record rainfall this summer. You wouldn’t need to tell me twice to keep my distance from this monster:
You can read more here. Of course, even this impressive whirlpool has got nothin’ on the famous disappearing Lake Peigneur, a catastrophic vortex which devoured a “drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding terrain.”
Australia, the Land Down Under, the place where everything is poisonous, just got even more terrifying. You read the headline right: it is raining spiders in Australia:
Millions of tiny spiders recently fell from the sky in Australia, alarming residents whose properties were suddenly covered with not only the creepy critters, but also mounds of their silky threads. But that’s not where the frightful news ends: Experts say that such arachnid rains aren’t as uncommon as you might think.
Of course the question, then, is why is it raining spiders in Australia? (Tautological answers will not be accepted.) The answer is just as unsettling as the phenomenon itself. According to Rick Vetter, a retired arachnologist at the University of California, Riverside, witnesses
likely saw a form of spider transportation known as ballooning. “Ballooning is a not-uncommon behavior of many spiders. They climb some high area and stick their butts up in the air and release silk. Then they just take off,” Vetter told Live Science. “This is going on all around us all the time. We just don’t notice it.”
Next time I travel to Australia, remind me to bring an umbrella.
