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This made it into the National Hurricane Center’s advisory system tonight:
000
WTNT21 KNHC 130150
TCMAT1TROPICAL STORM OPHELIA FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 27
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL162005
0300Z TUE MAY 12 2008AT 11 PM EDT…0300Z…A HURRICANE WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FROM THE
SOUTH SANTEE RIVER SOUTH CAROLINA TO CAPE LOOKOUT NORTH CAROLINA.AT 11 PM EDT…A TROPICAL STORM WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FROM NORTH
OF CAPE LOOKOUT TO OREGON INLET NORTH CAROLINA…INCLUDING PAMLICO
SOUND.A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NORTH OF EDISTO
BEACH SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE SOUTH SANTEE RIVER.A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED IN
THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE
EXPECTED IN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.TROPICAL STORM CENTER LOCATED NEAR 31.8N 77.9W AT 13/0300Z
POSITION ACCURATE WITHIN 15 NMPRESENT MOVEMENT TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST OR 290 DEGREES AT 3 KT
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 990 MB
EYE DIAMETER 90 NM
MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 60 KT WITH GUSTS TO 75 KT.
50 KT……. 70NE 70SE 70SW 70NW.
34 KT…….140NE 120SE 120SW 120NW.
12 FT SEAS..250NE 240SE 225SW 180NW.
WINDS AND SEAS VARY GREATLY IN EACH QUADRANT. RADII IN NAUTICAL
MILES ARE THE LARGEST RADII EXPECTED ANYWHERE IN THAT QUADRANT.REPEAT…CENTER LOCATED NEAR 31.8N 77.9W AT 13/0300Z
AT 13/0000Z CENTER WAS LOCATED NEAR 31.9N 77.7W
It’s an old advisory for Hurricane Ophelia in 2005 that has apparently been re-dated for today, and it’s causing some minor chaos right now. It’s showing up in my Hurricane Advisory RSS feed, but now some of the automated systems that take in these advisories and warn on them are going nuts. I first noticed when BreakingNewsOn on Twitter started reporting a hurricane bearing down on North Carolina. Similarly, local blogger Matthew Gregg noted the error in a tweet shortly after the BreakingNewsOn tweet. Following the link in Matthew’s tweet took me to the errant advisory listed above. Since then, though, this has made it out to sites like Reuters and the UK’s Tropical Storm Risk center.
I can assure everybody that there is no tropical storm out there, and I hope that this isn’t reaching even further than just these locations. I haven’t seen any false warnings being raised here, which is a good thing. Hopefully NHC will get this out of their news stream quickly.
EPILOGUE: Here’s a Post & Courier piece by Dan Conover about the errant advisory. Interesting how it all went down.
