Millions of people in the world suffer from arachnophobia, namely the fear of spiders (there's even a major character in the "Harry Potter" world, Ron Weasley, who has this - along with the actor who plays him), but hopefully there are none of those in the city of Goulburn, as it's now raining spiders in Australia.
Though many are excited over the news about upcoming Spider-Man projects, this love doesn't also apply to the real-life counterpart of the Marvel superhero from New York City, and the actual possibility of the phenomenon that causes raining spiders in Australia sounds positively terrifying.
According to Pop Sci, the fact that it's raining spiders in Australia is a fairly common phenomenon in the country's southeast city of Goulburn between the months of May and August (fall and winter in the planet's southern hemisphere), and the weather conditions necessary for this phenomenon are basically windy but clear.
News.com.au reports that the raining spiders in Australia phenomenon is dubbed "angel hair" in the country, and there are actually scientists who specialize in what causes this; the earliest report of the occurrence can be found in the 1974 diary of a man who was traveling by car, while others have placed the phenomenon in Yass and Tasmania.
The phenomenon that causes the current raining spiders in Australia has also been spotted in places like Texas and Brazil, and it requires a very unusual weather pattern in the time spiders are hatching.
Newsweek reports that this phenomenon happens often in nature, though usually there aren't enough spiders for the whole thing to be noticeable.
This phenomenon is actually called "ballooning," and it's caused when spiders spin a bit of silk in their youth, releasing it into the air to get a lift from the breeze and that way dispersing, finding new territory and distancing themselves from their own species, which can often be cannibalistic.
As it happens, the current raining spiders in Australia situation caused millions of arachnids to do this at the same time, causing obvious fear among Goulburn residents.
