National Weather Service apologizes for tornado warning alert - WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |

MADISON (WXOW) -- The National Weather Service is apologizing after a tornado warning was issued Monday morning to people throughout southeast Wisconsin through email and text alerts on their phones.

The NWS says the alert was supposed to be a test and was conducted in preparation for the April 18th EAS Tornado Warning drill.

In a statement, the NWS said, "The intent was to issue a test tornado warning. The wording in the warning and in the public information statement issued at 8:15 a.m. indicated that it was a test tornado warning. Unfortunately, we issued this warning with a vtec code of O for operational instead of T for text. The warning did not go to NOAA Weather Radio, but it did go out as a live tornado warning through most of the digital vendor services. There was no threat of a tornado, and we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that this caused."

WXOW-TV or wxow.com had nothing to do with the alert being sent out.