In 1861, a remarkable fish rain occurred in Singapore, where fish fell from the sky during a heavy downpour, startling the colonial population. This event was documented in contemporary records and became one of the classic examples of animal rain in Southeast Asia. The phenomenon was likely caused by a waterspout over nearby waters.

The Singapore fish rain was noted in travel writing and colonial natural histories, influencing the Western literary imagination of the exotic East. The motif of animal rain appears in the poetry and fiction of the British Empire, symbolizing the strange and unpredictable nature of tropical climates, as seen in works by Rudyard Kipling and others.