Nature can be scary. Sometimes, more than rain, sun, fog, and snow fall out the sky. When the conditions are right, mother nature can throw storms at us that are straight out of the end times.

SEE ALSO: 10 Natural Disasters That Created A More Beautiful World [PICS]

Almost every miraculous wrath of god or sign of apocalypse has come true at some point or another. Trumpets have sounded from the sky; hail, fire, and blood have been thrown down to the earth; great stars have torn through the sky and poisoned our waters; and the sun itself has turned pitch black — and every time, people have panicked, convinced the end is nigh.

10 Pillars of Flame

While California was being ravaged by wildfires in 2018, people fleeing from their homes in Redding saw something straight out of the Bible. A gigantic pillar of fire, climbing up 5,500 meters into the air, descended upon their city, destroying everything in its path.

A literal manifestation of God’s wrath destroyed their homes. You wouldn’t blame them if they got a little reflective. But the thing is, during wildfires, great pillar of fires like the one that led Moses out of Egypt are actually pretty common.

These pillars of flame are called “fire tornados” or “fire whirls”, and they’re perfectly natural. They’re essentially whirlwinds that pick up flames. When hot, dry air rises and swirls into a vortex, they sometimes pick up the burning embers and debris in the wildfire around it, creating a vortex of fire.

Usually, these things are pretty small and short-lived — but some fire whirls can rise up to the clouds and last for hours, wreaking havoc as they travel at tornado-like speeds, hurling flames that burn as hot as 1,093 °C.^[1]

9 Hail Mingled With Fire

When the first trumpet of the apocalypse sounds, the Bible says, a mixture of hail and fire will be hurled down onto the earth, burning the grass and trees into cinders.

Which is pretty much exactly what happened in Canberra, the capital of Australia, in 2003. Bushfires outside the city got so out-of-control that spilled into the suburbs, and the sight was horrific.

Canberra looked like Sodom and Gomorrah. Lightning crashed without rain, a pillar of fire 10,000 meters high and 300 meters wide ravaged the city, and—just like in the apocalypse—hail and fire fell together. And, just to make things creepier, the hail was black.

Scientists believe that the hail turned black because ash and soot got mixed up with the water vapor in the clouds, creating a black, dirty hail that actually gets mixed up inside of the smoke plume.

It all makes for a horrifying sight—but in Australia, the dry air can make bushfires brutal enough that this has happened more than once. In some parts of the world, the first sign of the apocalypse is just something to watch out for whenever there’s a fire.^[2]

8 Trumpets Sounding in the Sky

On Aug. 11, 2011, a woman in the Ukraine uploaded a video to YouTube of a strange, groaning, metallic sound emanating from the sky. It sounded like something out of a horror movie, or an alien invasion, or—as some pointed out—like trumpets blaring in the sky.

On its own, it was creepy enough — but over the coming months and years, more and more people uploaded more and more videos online. Today, there have been literally hundreds of these videos uploaded from every corner of the world.

While some of those videos were hoaxes from people trying to join a trend, noises like these really do happen. Whole towns have have lived through these kinds of strange sounds, and nobody’s completely sure what causes them.

Some have been chalked up to the rumblings of tsunamis or meteors, while others have been credited to the small earthquakes below the surface emitting the sounds of the earth’s crust moving underfoot.

Whatever it is, it’s hard not to feel a little terrified when you hear trumpets blast from heaven. But when you live with it, it’s nothing short of hell.

“It’s maddening… It won’t go away,” one woman in Rochester has said. “I don’t care what it is. I honestly don’t care. I just want to identify it and get rid of it.”^[3]

7 Blood Rain

In July 2018, the Siberian city of Norilsk became coated in scarlet. A blood-red rain fell down from the sky, covering the buildings, vehicles, and roads, and staining people’s clothes red.

It was a horrifying sight — but of all the apocalyptic plagues that mother nature likes to throw at us, this one’s actually the most common of all.

Countless blood-red storms have fallen throughout history, with the earliest records tracing all the way back to ancient Greece. Typically, these storms start when red sand from the desert gets mixed up with the rain, sending down something that looks more than just a little like a death metal music video.

It’s so common that, technically, the process that leads to “blood rains” hits the United Kingdom several times each year. Typically, those rains end up more of a brownish-yellow than red, but other than the color they really are the same thing.

The one that hit Norilsk was actually caused by rust residue from a factory, but, as terrifying as it looked, it still wasn’t real blood — even if a few of the people it fell on were convinced it really was.^[4]

6 Plagues of Frogs And Flesh

On Aug. 4, 1921, the people of Calgary found themselves right in the middle of an Egyptian plague. Without warning, the sky opened up above them a torrent of frogs can crashing down upon them just like rain.

It was pretty terrifying — and it’s also pretty common. Or, at least, as common as a Biblical plagues in real-life can be. Frogs have fallen in Japan, Hungary, and Uruguay, as well, while other parts of the world have been showered by fish, worms, jellyfish, octopuses, lizards, and almost anything else you can imagine.

It’s believed that the animals get sucked up by tornadoes passing over bodies of water, then are thrown back onto the earth, often far enough away from where they were picked up to leave the poor people pelted by frogs and fish completely clueless as to what they could have done to deserve this.^[5]

5 Rivers of Blood

Raining frogs aren’t the only Egyptian plagues that hit the earth on a semi-regular basis. Just like the rivers of Egypt, waters all around the world have reported spontaneously turning blood red.

Just recently, in Dec. of 2018, people in Dedza, Malawi broke into a panic when they found the Linthipe River running red. This, some of them insisted, was a sign — and, even when geologists explained that a red oxide mine had contaminated the water, plenty of people still insisted that it was real blood.

It wasn’t, of course. Contaminations like this one happen all the time. The Daldykan River in Siberia, which is near a metallurgical plant, has turned red on five separate occasions. In fact, even one of the biggest rivers on earth—China’s massive Yangtze—turned blood red in June 2018.

Usually, it isn’t really blood changing the color of the water — but there is one exception.

In Sept. 2017, a blockage in sewage pipe at a slaughterhouse in Jianxi caused blood and waste from dead pigs to fill the Lianxi River, turning the water supply red — and this time, it really was blood.^[6]

4 A Star Called Wormwood

In 2007, there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon upon the fountains of waters. And many men became ill of the waters, because they were made bitter.

Nobody specifically reported hearing an angel sound a trumpet before it happened, but otherwise, the 2007 Carancas impact event pretty well perfectly fits the description of apocalypse.

A meteor crashed into the earth just outside of the city of Desaguadero, Peru, landing with such an impact that the windows at the local health center shattered, leaving a crater 30m wide and 6m deep.

Water rushed up from under the ground after the meteor hit and filled the crater, and, by the time people came close enough to see it, that water was boiling. It was also emanating a gas so toxic that anyone who came near it became physically ill, often ending up hospitalized after they fell into spells of nausea and vomiting.

That’s pretty terrifying — but it has a scientific explanation. Scientists believe that the meteor opened up a channel of groundwater that had contaminated with a sedimentary deposit full of methane gases, which was what got the people sick.^[7]

3 Literal S—— Showers

Sometimes it feels God just opened the sky and pooped on your head, but when people complained about that in 2018 in Canada, it wasn’t just a metaphor. The country, for about a year, was overcome by an epidemic of feces falling from the sky.

One lovely Canadian family were enjoying a leisurely ride home when feces from the sky fell directly through their open sunroof and onto their heads.

“My son threw up,” the mother has told reporters. “We had so much in our faces. Both of us, our faces were covered in poop.”

Mother and son alike ended up with a rough case of pink eye — and they aren’t the only ones who have gone through it. 18 separate cases of falling feces were reported in Canada in a single year, with one family having it rain down on them while lounged on their back decks.

It’s not entirely clear why this happens. Transport Canada insists that the feces couldn’t have come from their airplanes, leaving scientists to expound on wild theories about flocks of ospreys and herons. One things for sure, though — sometimes, life really does poop on your head.^[8]

2 Blood-Splattered Snow

In May 1818, as Capt. John Ross and his crew were searching through the Arctic for the Northwest Passage, they discovered something eerie on the coast of Greenland. The cliffs were streaked with what the men described as “so dark a red as to resemble port wine.”

It’s a phenomenon that’s been given the cutesy name of “Watermelon Snow”, but it’s hard not to find it a little creepy. In the right parts of the world, you can wake up to find the snow outside looking a murder scene, splattered with blood.

Ross and his team popularized watermelon snow for the modern world, but as far back as Aristotle, people have been recording sightings of this strange phenomenon.

It forms during particularly hot days. When the sun melts the snow, sometimes, an algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis will bloom, turning the snow red or pink. This also speeds up the melting process, often leaving behind eerie little blood-red pools when the snow dissipates.

Not only is it creepy, but it can even be dangerous. Eating watermelon snow is said to have a laxative effect, a fact discovered by those special souls who, when confronted with freak of nature, still can’t resist the urge to put it in their mouth.^[9]

1 Days of Darkness

On the morning of May 19, 1780, the sun rose in the sky, changed its mind, and decided to go back down again.

Across New England and parts of eastern Canada, people watched in confusion as the morning sky darkened and, soon, turned completely black. By noon, it’s said, it was as pitch black as midnight.

It would have been creepy for anyone to see, but for a pack of Puritans who were deeply familiar with the Biblical passage promising that, in the end times, the sun would not shine for a third part of a day, it was nothing short of terrifying.

The good people of New England took this as a sure sign that the end was nigh, confessed their sins, gathered out, and waited for rapture.

The world didn’t end, of course, but nobody’s completely sure why it happened the sun went dark that day. There was no eclipse, there were no volcanic eruptions that could have blocked out the sun, and there’s no definitive answer as to what could have caused it.

We do know, however, that’s happened at least once since. In 1950 in Alberta, the sky turned so black that, in the words of one environmentalist: “If you’d woken up at noon you’d have believed it was midnight.”

The cause, that time, was a distant forest fire that had emitted enough smoke to block out the sun — which may very well have been what caused that black night that scared so many Puritans.

But who knows for sure. Maybe the world really did end in 1780, and now we’re in a hellish apocalypse where blood rains from the sky and pillars of flame ravage our cities.

I mean, that’s probably not what happened. But technically, it’s theoretically possible.^[10]

About The Author: Mark Oliver’s writing also appears on several other sites, including The Onion’s StarWipe and Cracked.com. His website is regularly updated with everything he writes.

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Winter storms, those marked with snow, ice, sleet, and whiteout conditions, occur from early fall through late spring. Today’s weather forecasting technology allows for early, and usually accurate predictions of such events. Such was not always the case, and even when it was, warnings were not always heeded. Winter storms present dangers which include snow blindness, falling ice, drifts which can bury vehicles and even houses, hypothermia, and many others. Other dangers are added by humans who inattentively poison themselves with carbon dioxide, fail to dress warmly, or unwisely expose themselves to hazardous conditions.

Here are ten of the worst winter storms in American history. In some of them ample warnings of nature’s impending wrath were available, in others the inclement weather appeared as a surprise. All of them were harsh reminders of the power of nature and its ability to reduce humanity to near helplessness.

10. Thanksgiving blizzard of 1971

Thanksgiving Day is a fall holiday, the start of the Christmas shopping season back in 1971, when Santa Claus arrived at the end of the traditional Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. So, technically storms which occur over Thanksgiving weekend aren’t winter storms at all. But for people living across Pennsylvania and upstate New York in 1971 the distinction was moot. New York and Pennsylvania endured the worst Thanksgiving Day storm in history, in terms of snowfall, on that holiday.

The storm began on Wednesday, the day before the holiday, then as now a major traveling day for many Americans. Across Pennsylvania up to 30 inches of snow fell before the storm abated late the following day. With temperatures hovering around 30 degrees, the wet snow weighed down branches and power lines, causing outages, thus disrupting cooking as well as travel.

Snowplows were unable to begin clearing the roads until after the snowfall abated, and travel throughout the region remained problematic through the weekend. Most of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as well as several stretches of the New York Thruway, remained closed, stranding travelers and disrupting traffic.

9. April blizzard of 1982

Easter Week in New York is remembered and celebrated in the 1948 film, Easter Parade, with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire enjoying a stroll with fellow New Yorkers down Fifth Avenue, the ladies showing off their new Easter Bonnets. Easter Week, 1982 was somewhat different. On Tuesday, April 6, people in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area found themselves in a raging blizzard which paralyzed the area.

Airports shut down. Stranded travelers swamped hotels and motels. Automobile traffic ground to a halt. The snow came down quickly, bringing New York city to a near standstill. Both New York’s Mets and Yankees had scheduled their season openers for that day. Neither took place. Rather than a White Christmas, it looked as if the approaching holidays of Easter and Passover would be covered with a blanket of snow.

Fortunately, warmer temperatures returned quickly, and by Easter Sunday, five days later, most of the snow was gone, with what was left just filthy slush. The storm occurred over two weeks following the beginning of Spring, at least according to the calendar, a time when New York’s average daily high temperatures normally approached 60 degrees.

8. February blizzard of 1983

February 10-12 saw a major blizzard along the route followed by I-95, one of the busiest traffic corridors in the United States. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, New Haven, and Boston all were buried in a storm which acquired the nickname, “the Megalopolitan Blizzard.” Philadelphia set a record for snowfall on February 11, with 21 inches falling in just 24 hours. Some areas in Virginia had over 30 inches of snow.

The New York metropolitan area had snowfall totals ranging from one and a half to two feet, with over 17 inches recorded in Central Park. Airports from southern Virginia through New England closed, rail travel stopped, and motorists found themselves stranded on the Interstates and other roads. Streets and highways alike remained snowbound for days after the storm, which caused an estimated 46 deaths.

Road crews attempting to clear the snow from Virginia to Maine found themselves hampered by abandoned vehicles, downed tree limbs, and other detritus from the blizzard, which also featured a phenomenon known as thundersnow, or thunderstorms within the blizzard. Some vehicles were abandoned on interstate highways, including the Capital Beltway surrounding Washington, where multiple jurisdictions took steps to clear them off the roads, in some cases prosecuting their owners for their transgressions.

7. The superstorm of March 1993

The March 1993 superstorm was so huge it ranged from Honduras, in Central America, to Eastern Canada. Snow in the Florida Panhandle is rare, especially in March, but the storm delivered 4-6 inches across the area, spicing it with hurricane force winds and frigid temperatures. As the storm moved across the Eastern United States, it knocked out the power to over 10 million homes, dumped snowfall which exceeded four feet in some regions, and led to over 200 deaths.

The 1993 superstorm was the first in which the National Weather Service could provide computer models which accurately predicted the amounts of snowfall several days in advance. The accuracy of the models allowed the Northeastern United States to declare states of emergency before the snow began to fall. Nonetheless, many failed to heed the warnings and adequately prepare for the event, especially in rural areas which were without electrical power for several days, and even weeks.

Winds exceeding 100 miles per hour swept across the Eastern seaboard from Florida to Nova Scotia. Cells within the storm generated tornados which added to the destruction. In all, 26 states, most of Eastern Canada, Cuba, and the North Atlantic were impacted by the storm. Every airport in the United States had their schedules disrupted, and those east of the Alleghenies from Tampa to Halifax, Nova Scotia, were closed at some point between March 12-15.

6. Valentine’s Day Storm of 2007

From the Nebraska plains to the East Coast, as far south as New Orleans to New England, Valentine’s Day 2007 was the midpoint of a massive winter storm. It produced severe, tornado spawning thunderstorms in the South, blizzard conditions in the Midwest, heavy ice storms in the Ohio Valley, and more blizzards in the Northeast, from February 12 over the next five days. In the United States and the two Canadian provinces most severely affected, 37 fatalities were attributed to the storm.

Snowfall was so heavy across New York State the National Guard was called out to assist in its removal. Pennsylvania saw a 50-mile backup with traffic at a standstill on I-78 in Berks County. Some motorists were stuck, immobilized by the storm, for over 24 hours, some even longer. In Philadelphia, Valentine’s Day was marked by huge sheets of thick ice sliding off roofs to crash to the streets below, forcing police to close off numerous streets.

At New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, airliners froze to the ground at the gates, blocking their use by arriving flights, which were forced to wait on taxiways. Some passengers were forced to wait for as much as ten hours in aircraft which could neither go to the gate to unload nor take off. Ironically, in Washington DC, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality canceled a scheduled hearing on global warming on February 14.

5. Midwestern blizzard of 1978

For three days in late January 1978, the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region endured a blizzard which proved one of the most severe winter storms in recorded history. The barometer fell to the third lowest level ever recorded in the mainland United States above the subtropical regions. The combination of the low pressure system, heavily laden with moisture, and the polar jet stream created staggering amounts of snowfall. In Michigan up to 52 inches of snow fell, piled into much higher drifts by winds which reached up to 100 miles per hour.

In Ohio the blizzard was the worst to ever impact the state, closing all major highways. The National Guard was called to rescue those stranded in snow. Calls went out for citizens with 4-wheel-drive vehicles to assist transporting emergency personnel to hospitals and clinics. On January 26, the second day of the blizzard, an Amtrak train was immobilized in Indiana when snowdrifts, some of which reached over 20 feet in height, blocked the rails.

In Michigan alone over 100,000 cars and trucks were abandoned on streets and roads, unable to move. Wind chills reached -60 degrees in Ohio, where 51 of the 70 total deaths caused by the storm occurred. The entire length of the Ohio Turnpike – 241 miles – was closed for two days, an unprecedented effect of what became known as the Great Blizzard of 1978.

4. The Children’s Blizzard of 1888

January 12, 1888, began as an unusually warm day in the Black Hills, then part of the Dakota Territory. The region contained small, isolated communities, the schools one-room schoolhouses where children walked to their classes. The respite from the cold and snow of the preceding December led to most residents, including school children, not wearing the heavy winter garments usually needed for that time of year.

By noon, the temperature fell, and snow began, driven by rising winds. Midafternoon saw steadily worsening conditions. Some teachers released their classes early, in the hope their charges could get home before the storm worsened further. Others kept the children in their schoolhouses, hoping they had sufficient fuel to keep the buildings warm through the storm. Late afternoon saw the full-fledged blizzard presenting whiteout conditions, 60 miles per hour winds, and snowdrifts rising above fifteen feet.

Over 230 people died in the blizzard, which was over by the following morning, and which affected Nebraska, the Dakota plains, and eastward into Minnesota. In South Dakota it is remembered as the Schoolhouse Blizzard, as well as the Children’s Blizzard, in remembrance of the over 170 children who died either trying to get home or in schoolhouses when fuel ran out and they froze to death that frigid night.

3. The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950

Also known as the Storm of the Century, 1950s Great Appalachian Storm began on November 24 and raged across 22 states before it dissipated six days later. The storm featured hurricane force winds, heavy snows and ice, and record low temperatures from Alabama north to New Hampshire east of the Alleghenies, and from Tennessee through Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia on the western side of the range.

It began the day after Thanksgiving, bringing temperatures to record lows in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. As it moved north it produced more record lows, accompanied by high winds which eventually exceeded 100 miles per hour in New Hampshire. The wind and cold created blizzard conditions on the western side of the mountains, and lake effect snow along the Great Lakes. On Saturday, November 25, Ohio State University was scheduled to play football against Michigan. Despite a temperature of 10 degrees, 30 mile per hour winds, and snow falling at the rate of two inches per hour, the game was played anyway. Michigan won.

New Jersey recorded the highest wind gust in the state’s history during the storm, 108 miles per hour. At New York’s LaGuardia Airport wind-driven storm surges breached the control dikes, closing the airport due to flooded runways. Connecticut saw coastal flooding which washed away railroad tracks and roads. In all, the Great Appalachian Storm caused 383 deaths, and almost $70 million in damages (about $816 million today).

2. The Great Lakes Storm of 1913

In terms of the weather conditions it produced, the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 was a winter storm, but it took place in mid-autumn, beginning on November 7 and raging for three days. A combination of unseasonably cold temperatures and hurricane force winds, the storm caused the sinking or grounding of 19 ships on the lakes, stranded nearly two dozen others, and killed more than 250 people, most of them sailors.

Blizzard conditions struck the lake ports of Duluth, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit, as well as many smaller ports. The heavy snow earned the storm the nickname “The White Hurricane.” Despite warnings of severe gales on the lakes, many ships continued on their voyages rather than attempt to take shelter in ports or anchorages. On Lake Huron wind gusts reached 90 miles per hour, Lake Erie recorded winds near 80. On all the lakes the high winds created rogue waves, wreaking havoc on ships and shore facilities.

The shorelines and cities along the lakes suffered blizzards which produced over 20 inches of snow in Cleveland, similar totals in Buffalo and Erie, and power outages throughout the region. Damaging ice storms occurred in Pennsylvania and New York. The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 remains the worst natural disaster in the history of the Great Lakes.

1. The Cyclone Blizzard of 1888

In March 1888, approximately 25% of the American population lived in the region between the Virginia Capes and Maine, and east of the Alleghenies. On March 11 that region was pummeled by one of the worst storms of any season of the year, in all of American history. The major cities of the Eastern Seaboard were paralyzed by heavy snow, storm surges driven by hurricane force winds, ice and sleet, and drifts which reached heights of 50 feet and beyond. In New York City the drifts were so high they blocked the elevated trains from operating, stranding more than 15,000 commuters.

The New York Stock Exchange closed for three consecutive days, since few were able to get to their place of employment. The East River froze over between Queens and Manhattan. The blizzard was credited with inspiring New York City officials with replacing the elevated trains with a subway system, as well as moving gas lines and water mains underground. New York was not the only city to suffer a significant number of deaths to the storm, which exceeded 400 throughout the Northeast. But it suffered the most of any city, more than 200, including Senator Roscoe Conkling, who collapsed while walking in Union Square, developed pneumonia, and died of complications a month later.

In Brooklyn, a snowdrift in the Gravesend neighborhood was measured at 52 feet. Houses were buried, their occupants trapped within. The storm sank or otherwise wrecked more than 200 ships in the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay and more than 100 seamen and their would-be rescuers died. Throughout the area affected by the storm, frigid temperatures, no higher than the low teens in most places, added to the misery and amplified the danger. The Cyclone Blizzard of 1888 became the standard against which all winter storms have been measured ever since.