> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFv2W7Duqiw#t=0m50s

Very impressive - or rather terrible if you happen to be caught in it. 
Imagine you newly bought car parked in the open in wether like this - ouch.

However, without any hard evidence, I suppose that the origin of the saying 
is much less spectacular. Probably a small whirlwind once did pick up a fire 
and deposited the burning embers somewhere else...

No kidding here: the stories about rains of fish and frogs did originate 
exactly this way. A whirlwind passes over water, picks up water+fish, drops 
it nearby. If people are present, obviously a miracle did happen. Same with 
frogs: driven out by rain, picked up and deposited again after the whirlwind 
exhausts itself. When this happens with parts of roofs, tiles or tree limbs 
nobody thinks it odd. When it happens with living creatures a miracle must 
have happended ;-)

Off-off topic: what do you English speakers call a whirlwird over water? I 
just read you call it a waterspout - I always though this was the name of a 
tap.

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