If you came across tornado watches this morning, they were bogus. A data transmission problem at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center resulted in the issuance of dated watches.
After a few updates saying they were continuing to investigate, the Weather Service posted this update, indicating that they believe they found the source of the rogue watches, and have severed the connection to that source – which is Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), a contractor based in Falls Church, Va.:
Multiple National Weather Service forecast offices took to Twitter to notify the public the watches were not real.
NO WATCHES ARE IN EFFECT THIS MORNING- Technical problems are occurring. Old SPC watches are being sent out... http://t.co/zAY3wPKR3s
— NWS Nashville (@NWSNashville) November 12, 2014
An error is causing old products from SPC to be re-sent. There are no current severe weather products in effect for southeast Texas. #houwx
— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) November 12, 2014
Everyone, please PAY NO ATTENTION to any tweets you see out there of tornado watches, SPC is having technical difficulties. #alwx #bmxwx
— NWS Birmingham (@NWSBirmingham) November 12, 2014
Kathryn Prociv, a producer at The Weather Channel, posted a tweet which illustrated some of the dated watches within its dissemination system.
The glitch at the National Weather Service follows a barrage of product dissemination problems at the agency and its parent organization NOAA. An “over zealous” Android application took down the National Weather Service Web site in August and a firewall upgrade disrupted the issuance of severe thunderstorm warnings in May.
And just three weeks ago, an outage at NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service halted the flow of satellite images and data to the National Weather Service and outside users.
Related: Weather Service stops receiving satellite data, issues notice about forecast quality | NOAA snow and ice Web site down for 9 days and counting
In an interview with Mashable reporter Andrew Freedman, National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini indicated confronting these problems is a priority for the agency.
“We are very aggressively trying to replace our dissemination system,” Uccellini said. “I’m not walking away or trying to hide.”
In an op-ed in the NY Times, author Kathryn Miles said the implications of a compromised dissemination system are serious:
This is a matter of national security. If we don’t empower forecasters to do their work, our nation is at risk of losing billions in property and untold numbers of lives. What will make that eventuality all the more tragic is the fact that it will have been almost entirely preventable.
We will post additional information about today’s dissemination problem as we learn more.