It's raining apples! Traffic grinds to a halt as 'mini tornado' dumps a hail of fruit

天上在下苹果！小型龙卷风卷来一阵苹果雨 道路交通短暂中断

After a series of storm warnings, drivers in the evening rush hour were prepared for almost anything. Except, that is, for it to start raining apples.

因为此前一直收到一连串的风暴警报，所以傍晚下班高峰期的司机们都已经做好迎接各种恶劣天气的准备了。不过他们可能没想到的是，天上竟然下起了苹果雨。

Scores of them battered car roofs and windscreens before landing in the road at a busy junction in Coundon, Coventry. The deluge of fruit brought traffic to a standstill at 6.45pm on Monday.

苹果从天而降，砸在英国考文垂市的一条交通繁忙的大街上。事故发生在周一下午的6：45，不少汽车的车顶和挡风玻璃被砸到。苹果的突然袭击造成了当地交通的短暂中断。

One motorist, who was travelling with her husband, said: ‘The apples fell out of nowhere. They were small and green and hit the bonnet hard. Everyone had to stop their cars suddenly.’

一对自驾车旅行的夫妇表示：“苹果不知打哪儿突然掉下来，个头很小的青苹果，狠狠地砸中了我们汽车的引擎盖。大家都不得不急刹车。”

The phenomenon is believed to be down to a mini tornado which touched down elsewhere, sucking apples from the ground or from trees. Such a powerful vacuum could have travelled for many miles before the tornado’s energy dissipated, depositing the fruit over Coventry.

据信这一现象可能是由于附近某处的果园有小型的龙卷风出现，把苹果从地上或树上揪下来了。龙卷风像强力吸尘器一般，在能量消散前带着这些苹果飞了一段路，把苹果掉在了考文垂的大街上。

Another theory is that the apples could have fallen from the hold of a plane.

还有一种说法认为苹果是从路过的飞机上掉下来的。

Brian Meakins, 63, was stunned when he opened his front door and found his garden full of smashed apples. The retired forklift truck driver said: ‘At first I assumed kids must have thrown them because we do get the occasional egg and apple thrown but there’s way too many for that.’

63岁的退休叉车司机Brian Meakins表示，在他打开前门看见花园里一片狼藉满地砸碎的苹果时，简直是目瞪口呆。“我开始以为是淘气的孩子们捣乱，他们有时间会把鸡蛋或苹果丢到我们家院子里。不过这次看起来也太多了点！”

Jim Dale, senior meteorologist from British Weather Services, said the event was probably caused by ‘returning polar maritime air’.

英国气象服务的气象学家Jim Dale表示这场苹果雨很有可能是因为回流的极地海洋气团造成的。

‘Essentially these events are caused when a vortex of air, kind of like a mini tornado, lifts things off the ground rising up into the atmosphere until the air around it causes them to fall to earth again.

“实际上这些都是由于气流漩涡引起的，这有点像小型的龙卷风。气流把物体从地面举起来，上升到大气中，直到周围的空气再次让他们降落到地面上。”

‘We’ve all heard of fish and frogs falling from the sky and apples is certainly unusual because they have some weight to them but it is not out of the realms of possibility.’

“以前我们都听说过鱼和青蛙从天空中掉下来的事件，不过苹果还蛮少见的，因为苹果有点重。不过这不是完全没有可能。”