PROVIDENCE – A tsunami warning was mistakenly sent out to certain mobile users throughout New England on Tuesday.
The morning warning cited the National Weather Service as the source, and the federal weather agency was quick to announce it was an error.
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“We have been receiving reports [of] an erroneous tsunami alert across New England,” NWS Boston tweeted. “Please note there is no tsunami threat for New England.”
We have been receiving reports that an erroneous tsunami alert across New England. Please note there is NO TSUNAMI THREAT FOR New England.
— NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) February 6, 2018
In a statement, the NWS said it sent out the warning as a routine test, which was then reported as an actual warning by at least one private-sector company. The agency said it is looking into why it happened.
A tsunami is a large ocean wave typically caused by an undersea earthquake. It can travel hundreds of miles across the open sea.
In Providence, the commercial weather forecasting company AccuWeather Inc. sent out a push notification at 8:30 a.m. saying the tsunami warning would last an hour beginning at 8:28 a.m. It cited the NWS as its source.
The notification further noted, “This message is for test purposes only. This is a test to determine transmission times involved in the dissemination of tsunami information.”
AccuWeather later released a statement saying NWS miscoded its test as a real warning.
“The responsibility is on the NWS to properly and consistently code the messages, for only they know if the message is correct or not,” according to the statement.
AccuWeather said this isn’t the first time NWS has miscoded its tests.
Twitter users were quick to criticize the mishap, comparing it with the alert mistakenly sent to Hawaii residents on Jan. 13, warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack.
Did the Hawaii employee transfer over to the National Weather Service?
— Jonathan Ng (@JonathanNgBOS) February 6, 2018
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Sherman@PBN.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.
