Some New Yorkers got a tsunami warning Tuesday morning, only to find out the mobile alert was just a test.
The alert, sent by AccuWeather, said a tsunami warning was in effect until 9:28 a.m. and cited the National Weather Service as the source. It was sent to people in New York City, as well as other cities along the East Coast and even a few in Texas.
The warning was “miscoded by the NWS,” AccuWeather said in a statement.
“AccuWeather was correct in reading the mistaken NWS codes embedded in the warning,” the agency said. “The responsibility is on the NWS to properly and consistently code the messages, for only they know if the message is correct or not.”
“We are currently trying to find out how a message went out as a warning,” the New York NWS said in a tweet earlier Tuesday.
If users opened the alert and clicked on the warning, there was a message that said it was a test.
The warning was also seen on The Weather Channel app by some users, but the agency did not send a push alert.
The mistake quickly drew comparisons to the false missile alert that was sent to people in Hawaii on Jan. 13.
“Congrats to the Hawaiian Missile Alert Guy on his new gig at @NWSNewYorkNY,” one Twitter user wrote.
It was not immediately clear how many people received the alert.
