'Sharknado': Can it happen? Science says maybe

When blood-thirsty sharks take to the air and land, it's comfortable knowing insurance will cover it.

Before July 11, the concept of sharks raining down on Los Angeles was inconceivable until the hit Syfy original movie "Sharknado" showed what it would look like if a waterspout -- a tornado over an ocean or body of water that gains traction once on land-- sucked sharks out of the water, then dumped them on land.

And while the Insurance Information Institute says a theoretical sharknado would be covered by insurance, according to several consumer reports across the country, it's probably never going to happen, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert.

"It's good Hollywood, but bad science," Patzert said.

Turns out that a real-life "sharknado" wouldn't make history. Since time immemorial frogs, fish, crabs and even small sharks have been sucked up from the sea and tossed ashore miles inland -- largely because of waterspouts.

But the downpour of large sharks depicted "Sharknado" is a bit of a stretch because waterspouts are almost always too weak to haul them, Patzert said.

"In a [global] warming world, the atmospheric conditions that generate waterspouts... cold, dry air out of the north colliding with warm, moist air from the south should become more exaggerated," Patzert said in an e-mail. "This could lead to super waterspouts."

"Could -- but not guaranteed," Patzert added. "This is from the school of scientists that hypothesize that a warmer world is a more extreme world."

Patzert, who consulted on the big-budget 2004 disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow," said it would take a massive waterspout, like an EF-5 spinning at speeds of more than 250 mph, to generate the updraft needed to suck great whites out of the Pacific Ocean and dump them onto L.A.

Since waterspouts contain water, it stands to reason that sharks riding along could stay alive, Patzert said.

West of the continental divide, southern California is the tornado and waterspout capital of the U.S., Patzert said, with about a half-dozen small tornadoes and waterspouts annually striking the area.

None of those are powerful enough to lift large sharks from ocean, Patzert said, but they have been known to displace smaller water animals, a phenomenon that makes national news and "weird science" headlines anytime it happens

"There's no doubt [a waterspout] could lift small amphibians or small fish and suck them into the vortex," Patzert said.

While there isn't a scientific name like "fishnado" or "frognado" for the rare occurrence of "raining" animals -- Patzert called such occurrences "serendipity".

In 2010, meteorologists suggested that a waterspout sucked up hundreds of fish into the vortex before they bombarded the small town of Lajamanu, Australia, hundreds of miles from the coast. A downpour of golf balls (not golf ball-sized hail -- just golf balls) descended upon Punta Gorda, Fla., after a tornado struck a golf course.

According to the 1992 book "the World's Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Times," commuters along the 10 Freeway in December 1984 reported fish and crabs falling from the sky. The California Highway Patrol said later the seafood had fallen from a delivery truck.

Frogs raining from the Los Angeles night sky was famously portrayed in the 1999 movie "Magnolia."

Even the Library of Congress website addresses the phenomena of "raining frogs" in its Everyday Mysteries section.

Anthony C. Ferrante, the director of "Sharknado," studied the raining-animal phenomenon after he came up with the title "Sharknado," but kept hard science at bay, referencing one blood-soaked scene where a character uses a chainsaw to cut himself out of a shark that swallows him whole after falling from the sky.

"If we tried to go into how realistic it is, it wouldn't be fun," Ferrante said. "If you go into the science of it, the whole movie falls apart."

"Sharknado" has become an Internet sensation since its debut, when it became the top-trending word on Twitter for hours after its July 11 premiere, with tongue-in-cheek tweets from actors, directors and even Red Cross Oklahoma.

And Ferrante is in on the joke.

"This movie is the most improbable thing," he said. "One of the reasons why people embraced the movie is it's a disaster that couldn't happen, necessarily."

When it comes to any Syfy original movie, science is usually the jumping-off point in all of them, according to Thomas Vitale, the executive vice president of programming and original movies at Syfy.

"You take that real scientific fact and you make a fantastical movie out of it," he said. "Some of the movies are just created out of a title, others are from just an idea."

In the canon of original Syfy movies, like "Mansquito" or "Sharktopus," none of them have made a pop-culture splash like "Sharknado." Social media caused viewership of the July 18 encore to spike 38 percent over its premiere, or 1.9 million viewers, making it Syfy's most-watched original program since 2011.

"Sharknado" airs again tonight, as part of the Syfy Shark-A-Thon, and again on Aug. 22. Patzert said his DVR is set for tonight's repeat of the movie, which he thought looked "cool," even if it maligns sharks, as Hollywood usually does.

"Shark attacks happen two or three times a year, whereas millions are being slaughtered for their fins for soup," Patzert said. "The probability that you're going to get attacked by your neighbor is infinitely more probable than being attacked by a shark, or a sharknado."

Syfy is hosting "Sharknado" midnight screenings on Aug. 2 at theaters nationwide, seven of them in the Southland.

The fact that "Sharknado" has found its success through being a movie to joke about isn't a bad thing either for Syfy, Vitale said.

"We've succeeded in what everyone in TV wants to do, which is entertain its audience," he said. "Everyone's in on the joke."

A sequel to "Sharknado" is already in the works, this one rumored to wreak havoc on New York City.