The Pprune Rumours and News forum details the results of massive hail storm at Istanbul. See below.
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...07-2017-a.html
A snippet in the latest Time magazine was discussing things that fall from the air. It said "In 2007, a woman in Louisiana was crossing the street when large, tangled clumps of worms began dropping from above. The worms may have been propelled into the air by a water spout."
It got me thinking about an incident I experienced when flying a RAAF Viscount from Edinburgh airfield near Adelaide in South Australia to Canberra in 1965. There had been heavy rain at the airfield before we taxied for take off. The sky was now clear. As as we lined up we saw many sea gulls squatting on the runway. There was no way I wanted to risk hitting them so asked ATC to organise the fire crew to hose them off the runway.
The hosing did the job and the fire crew said the birds were feeding from lots of worms on the runway.
Edinburgh has a long runway. We started the take off roll and shortly before V1 we suddenly saw a large flock of seagulls rise into the air from the grass verge next to the runway and fly across our projected path. Within seconds we had multiple bird strikes but no indication of engine malfunctions. The risk was engine problems could surface later in early climb phase. With plenty of runway to spare we aborted the take off and used the full length to pull up without excessive use of brakes. The ground fine pitch of the Viscount Rolls Royce Dart engines was an effective stopping device which is why we hardly used the brakes.
We returned to the tarmac to inspect any damage while the fire crew picked up about 24 dead sea gulls we had clobbered. The ground crew found no evidence of damage to the airframe and engines apart from bits of feathers and blood. The techs did a full run up of all four engines to check for any anomalies. All was well and we departed after the runway was further hosed down to make sure there were no more worms.
The point of this post was to alert readers that after an extreme weather event such as tornadic tubes under low clouds with hail and heavy rain, it is possible that worms may be drawn upwards and deposited far afield including on a runway like Edinburgh. In turn these could attract birds.
Just a thought.