Hey, at least it wasn’t a missile alert.
Forecasters at Accuweather churned up a tidal wave of confusion Tuesday when the company sent New Yorkers a tsunami warning that was meant to be a test.
Accuweather pushed the alert to phones around 8:30 a.m., stating “tsunami warning in effect” until 9:28 a.m, citing the National Weather Service.
The alert that popped up on people’s phones did not mention it was only a test, though clicking the alert took users to Accuweather’s website, which states: “…THIS_MESSAGE_IS_FOR_TEST_PURPOSES_ONLY…”
An Accuweather meteorologist said the National Weather Service is to blame for the snafu.
“The weather service — they’re the ones that issue the warning — and when they do that, it sends it to our system,” said Tom Kines. “As soon it gets into our system it’s pushed out. There’s no intervention on our end.”
But a rep for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal umbrella agency over the National Weather Service, disputed AccuWeather’s claims and said the test was clearly and correctly coded.
“Our investigation into this routine monthly tsunami test message confirmed that it was coded as a test message,” according to a statement from Susan Buchanan, NOAA’s acting director of public affairs.
“We are working with private sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognize the coding. Private sector partners perform a valuable service in disseminating warnings to the public. We will continue to work with our partners to prevent this from occurring again.”
Kines did not know how far the erroneous alert traveled, but social media users as far as Florida and Texas reported receiving it as well.
The flub comes weeks after Hawaii was plunged into 38 minutes of chaos when a state Emergency Management Agency worker accidentally sent out an incoming-missile alert.
And social media was quick to point out the similarities in Tuesday’s tsunami warning.
“This took 4 clicks in @accuweather to find out that the Upper West Side Tsunami Warning issued is only a test. Congrats to the Hawaiian Missile Alert Guy on his new gig at @NWSNewYorkNY,” wrote Twitter user West Side Yenta.