Mini Tornado Left Koi And Goldfish High And Dry in Dorset, UK
A woman in St. Ives in Dorset, UK was astounded to find that most of the water from her garden pond had disappeared, leaving her koi carp and goldfish gasping for air. While at first she thought there must be a leak, it turned out it was caused by a mini tornado.
According to the Bournemouth Echo, the pond normally holds 3,000 gallons of water, along with around 60 koi carp and some goldfish, but that morning Celia Marker was shocked to see the fish floundering and gasping for breath in the little water that remained. She said she couldn’t believe her eyes, but she didn’t initially think it was caused by a mini tornado and thought there must be a leak.
“When I got up and went outside and saw the pond, at first I thought it must be a trick of the light.”
She says she ran into the garden in her nightdress, to find there was only around ten inches of water left. She immediately grabbed the hose and starting filling the pond again.
“I was in an absolute panic and spent hours with the hose on full pelt because I thought there must be a leak.”
However, on filling the pond she found there was definitely not a leak in the lining of the 10-foot by 8-foot pond, which normally has a water level of almost three feet. Marker was totally baffled as to where the water had actually gone.
Woman baffled after TORNADO sucked her pond dry leaving 60 fish high and dry http://t.co/bhRFi70I6D pic.twitter.com/g8ksPbz9cE
— Mirror Weird News (@MirrorWeirdNews) July 9, 2015
Marker phoned the Met Office and, according to them, if there was a mini tornado and high winds, this would be possible. It turns out there were strong winds in the area and it looks like it was indeed a mini tornado that sucked most of the water out of the pond.
As reported in Practical Fishkeeping, ironically others in the area were struggling with flash flooding and fires. Apparently the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service handled over 120 calls in just two hours. Meanwhile, Marker quite literally had the opposite problem with the mini tornado sucking up most of the water from the beloved fish pond.
However, all’s well that ends well, and fortunately, after Marker’s panic refilling of the pond following the mini tornado, all the fish are OK and the pump and waterfall in the pond are still working.
Meanwhile in other strange, fish-related news the Inquisitr reports the story of a baby shark which fell from the sky into a Virginia Beach backyard, ironically close to their own fish pond. As there were marks made by talons on the baby shark, there was probably no mini tornado involved in that incident.
[Image: CC by 2.0 Wonderlane]
