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Weather Service Says False Tsunami Alert Coded Correctly

Jeremy DaRos
/
Associated Press
Some people on the East Coast got a push alert on their phones Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, about a tsunami warning, but the National Weather Service says it was just a test.

The National Weather Service is rejecting a private forecasting company's claim that it incorrectly coded a test message as a real tsunami warning.
 
AccuWeather says the weather service "miscoded'' a test message as a real warning. Users of the popular AccuWeather app then got a false tsunami alert.

The message was sent to users throughout the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The Weather Channel says its users also saw the bogus warning on the company's mobile app and website.
 
Weather service spokeswoman Susan Buchanan says the agency's investigation found the routine monthly test message was properly coded. She says the weather service is "working with private sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognize the coding.''