KANSAS CITY, Mo. — National Weather Service offices in Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis and Topeka say a technical issue led to tornado warning alerts Tuesday morning that were not clearly labeled as a drill or test.
As part of Severe Weather Preparedness Week, both Kansas and Missouri scheduled a tornado drill at 10 a.m.
The drill included sounding outdoor sirens as well as activating emergency alerts on smartphones.
Just moments after the drill, residents provided feedback wondering about the test.
In a tweet, the National Weather Service office in Kansas City said they had sent a properly coded test alert into the Wireless Emergency Alert System, but somewhere along the chain, the system converted it to an actual warning.
Concerning the recent tornado drill. The National Weather Service issued a properly coded TEST tornado warning. Somewhere in the Wireless Emergency Alert System chain, the message was misinterpreted as an actual warning and sent it out that way. We are looking into the cause
— NWS Kansas City (@NWSKansasCity) March 2, 2021
They say they are reviewing what caused the error.
In addition to the NWS alert error, the Johnson County, Kansas, Department of Emergency Management said their outdoor sirens failed to sound as part of this morning's test. Officials there believe they've identified the error and plan to retest the sirens on Wednesday.
A note regarding today’s failed siren activation during the statewide tornado drill. pic.twitter.com/67xZgSvcQ6
— Johnson Co. EM (@JoCo_Emergency) March 2, 2021
