Season's first tropical storm goes by name of 'Oops'

A mistake Monday night at a National Weather Service office in North Carolina accidentally broadcast a National Hurricane Center warning covering much of the Carolina coast.

According to the advisory, a tropical storm was about 150 miles off the coast from Charleston and was expected to make landfall today as a Category 1 hurricane.

Though the National Hurricane Center removed the warning from its forecast advisory stream after learning of it, the news had already been rebroadcast by an international weather service in the United Kingdom, the Reuters Foundation AlertNet and BreakingNewsOn, a news service in The Netherlands that provides news alerts via Twitter, a popular online messaging service.

The BreakingNewsOn alert ("US NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER REPORTS THAT TROPICAL STORM OPHELIA HAS FORMED. DETAILS SOON") went to 4,687 subscribers around 10 p.m. Monday. The agency reported about an hour later that the National Hurricane Center had accidentally issued the advisory.

"It looked odd from the start," said Michael van Poppel of BreakingNewsOn, "but since it came through their official channel, I assumed it was legitimate. Anyway, I tried contacting both TSR and the NHC but, given the time, I was not able to speak to someone."

The advisory, which included a tropical storm warning covering Charleston south to Edisto Beach, appeared to come from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla.

Instead, said center spokesman Dennis Feltgen, it was a pre-season test of forecasting software by the National Weather Service office in Morehead City, N.C., that "accidentally went out into the world." The test recycled an NHC advisory from the Ophelia storm warning in September 2005.

While news agencies struggled to confirm the warning, Charleston weather enthusiast Jared W. Smith instantly recognized it as an error and advised his online readers not to panic. "I knew it because the first (storm) name of the season is Arthur," Smith said. "Plus I could look out the window."

Reach Dan Conover at 937-5922 or dconover@postandcourier.com.