News

Yep, It Was Literally Raining Spiders And Spider Webs In Australia (Photos)

by Emily Arata

In "Charlotte's Web," ballooning baby spiders floating away on their webs was adorable. According to witnesses of a recent spider-baby onslaught in Australia, it's anything but that in real life.

The Goulburn Post reports recent weather in the Southern Tablelands brought millions of young spiders parachuting in on tiny ballooned webs. The arachnids dispersed after landing, leaving white layers of their webs over farm fields and homes.

Photographs show the area seemingly buried in a thin layer of cobwebs that reportedly made every day errands a little difficult.

Area local Ian Watson told The Sydney Morning Herald,

The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings and when I looked up at the sun it was like this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred metres into the sky... You couldn't go out without getting spider webs on you. And I've got a beard as well, so they kept getting in my beard.

The so-called Angel Hair phenomenon reportedly happens when spiders need to escape an area or relocate. LiveScience reports weather may have prevented this season's babies from "ballooning" in waves, so they were forced to do it all at once.

Photos from the scene provide a look at a natural phenomenon.

#VIDEO - Must watch: The "spider rain" phenomenon is the stuff of nightmares http://t.co/vMjJRFumxx pic.twitter.com/nS6WhyayfX — Independent.ie (@Independent_ie) May 18, 2015

This "spider rain" is actually more like snow.

Hail in Sydney. Meh. It rained spiders in Goulburn this month via @ingating http://t.co/XZVXME4X23 pic.twitter.com/BqjmOT7Wht — Eryk Bagshaw (@ErykBagshaw) May 14, 2015

Do you have the heebie-jeebies yet?

Raining spiders in Goulburn? Entirely possible, scientist says http://t.co/v2lbHzNbpG SPIDER RAIN. Oh god. pic.twitter.com/VgyX6SKCG4 — Ben Grubb (@bengrubb) May 14, 2015
Australian town of Goulburn caught in strange 'spider rain' phenomenon http://t.co/Ly9hqFaLju pic.twitter.com/RidgK2luYh — ITV News (@itvnews) May 17, 2015
'Spider Rain' Cloaks Australian town. This isn't the first time. Google Wagga Wagga images. http://t.co/GPpboqNRRS pic.twitter.com/2QVt0EYxSB — Angie Straub (@Direct2Dealers) May 18, 2015

Citations: Raining spiders in Goulburn? Entirely possible, scientist says (Sydney Morning Herald)