In early June 2026, residents of Centro Poblado, a community in the department of Yoro in northern Honduras, reported the return of the lluvia de peces, the rain of fish. “At 4 in the afternoon the sky over Yoro went dark, and by 6 they were reporting the rain of fish,” one resident told the news site Tunota, holding several small fish in his hands. Many people took them home to eat, as tradition calls for.

The phenomenon is said to happen once or twice a year in Yoro, usually between May and July, after the first violent storms of the rainy season. Since 1998 the town has held an annual Festival de la Lluvia de Peces. Many locals credit it to Manuel de Jesús Subirana, a Spanish missionary in the 1850s who is said to have prayed that the poor of Yoro would never go hungry.

Science doesn’t have a firm answer. The usual explanation for animal rains elsewhere, a waterspout sucking fish up from a lake or sea and dropping them inland, doesn’t fit well here: Yoro is far inland, and the fish are small freshwater species. Another popular theory holds that heavy rain floods underground streams and pushes the fish to the surface.

Part of the puzzle is that almost no one has seen the fish actually fall. People shelter from the storm and find them on the ground afterward.