Milwaukee tornado warning test accidentally goes public
MILWAUKEE - Thousands of people in Wisconsin got word of a Tornado Warning for much of Southeastern Wisconsin.
As it turns out, the notification of the fictional warning was a pure accident.
The National Weather Service tell Newsradio 620 WTMJ's Jon Byman that a test which was supposed to remain internal to the National Weather Service accidentally went to the public.
A staff member there told Byman he was conducting the test, had the option of "test" or "live," and mistakenly pushed live.
"It was not in a test mode. It was in an operational mode," Rusty Kapella of the NWS told Jon.
"Though it was still a test, it went out to certain computer circuits that relayed it out to the world as if it was a real tornado warning."
Kapella apologized for the "inconvenience and confusion it may have caused."
However, there is a real weather warning right now - a winter storm warning.
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