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National Weather Service issues false tsunami warning

A test of the National Weather Service’s Tsunami Warning system was incorrectly reported as a real warning by AccuWeather and other sources on Tuesday morning.

According to a statement issued by AccuWeather, they had received the warning from NWS with the word “TEST” in the header, but when AccuWeather’s system conducted a computer scan of the message, it found the actual codes used for a real tsunami warning.

AccuWeather was not alone in reporting the test as a real warning, as both The Weather Channel and some NWS website pages reporting it as a real warning.

“Tsunami warnings are handled with the utmost concern by AccuWeather and it has sophisticated algorithms to scan the entire message, not just header words, as from the time of a warning to the actual event can be mere minutes. AccuWeather was correct in reading the mistaken NWS codes embedded in the 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,” the AccuWeather statement read.

Once AccuWeather found that the NWS warning was merely a test, they posted updates on social media channels assuring that there was no tsunami warning for the East Coast of the United States.

AccuWeather stated that a similar problem has previously occurred with NWS coding.

AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers wrote to the NWS over three years ago to address the issue and its potential to be repeated.

“We understand the reason for test messages, but we feel that NWS consider fail safe measures for the future to prevent such an occurrence. The issuance did say it was a “TSUNAMI WARNING,” but it was not a tsunami warning, rather simply a test of the system. We note that the method currently used of relying on the “TEST” in the header of the product and a test in the VTEC status, as the identifying device for software coding in numerous programs and systems used by a plethora of companies to identify such messages, has proven to be a less than perfect system,” Myers’s message read.

The NWS and AccuWeather are currently working to determine why the coding was placed in the test warning.