Testing error to blame for slew of false tornado warnings: Environment Canada

Ontario is still under a stay-at-home order, but at least you can crawl out of the storm cellar after Environment Canada confirmed that Tuesday’s tornado warnings were sent out in error.

The twister warnings, which covered a large portion of southwestern Ontario, were cancelled by the agency within minutes — but not before reaching thousands of alarmed citizens.

According to Environment Canada, it was an unfortunate, and regrettable, mistake.

“There was some testing being done on a background system and unbeknownst to the people doing the test, that background system was actually also hooked into an operational server, so when they were sending these test tornado warnings they actually made it out into the circuit,” explained Geoff Coulson, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada.

“And as soon as that mistake was realized they quickly sent out a cancellation message.”

Environment Canada issued a tornado warning this morning for the Guelph and Waterloo Region areas — and then cancelled it within three minutes. @680NEWS @680NEWSweather @570NEWS #ONstorm pic.twitter.com/qXhdafczJc

— Mark Douglas (@Douglas680NEWS) April 27, 2021

The same thing happened on Monday when a comparatively innocuous frost advisory warning was sent out by mistake during testing.

Coulson said the system is now being carefully examined to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“At this point in time they are taking a long hard look at the testing procedures to ensure that any future testing being done will strictly be done on these background servers.”

“This is not something anybody would have wished to happen,” he added. “These warnings are meant only in the most serious of circumstances and we don’t really have a warning that is more significant than a tornado warning because they usually are issued with very limited lead time and we expect people to react as soon as they hear them. That’s why it’s going to take a much more detailed look at what exactly went on today to ensure that it never happens again in the future.”

It’s not the first time Ontarians have faced a disturbing warning sent out by mistake.

In January 2020, a provincial emergency alert warned of a ominous “incident” at the Pickering Nuclear Generating System.

A statement from the Premier’s office later blamed “human error” during a training exercise for the province-wide alert.