Floridians, Others Awake To False Tsunami Warning

MIAMI, FL — There's about as much chance of seeing a tsunami in South Florida as there is of seeing snow, yet some people awoke Tuesday morning to a false warning of a tsunami threat. If you were one of them, the National Weather Service has a revised forecast: PLEASE DISREGARD TSUNAMI WARNING ... OOPS.

"There was no tsunami warning. There was never any tsunami warning in effect," meteorologist Andrew Hagen of the National Weather Service in Miami told Patch. "This is a routine monthly test that the National Weather Service does, sent out by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska."

The agency is investigating to determine exactly who was at fault for sending out the false tsunami warning that went out to people along the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States by AccuWeather and possibly other third-party weather trackers around 8:28 a.m.

The false tsunami warning follows last month's false ballistic missile warning that shook a number of Hawaiians right out of their sandals.

Though it is not statistically impossible to experience an actual tsunami in South Florida, it is very unlikely. We can thank the Bahamas for acting as a natural barrier to any potential threat from the sea.

"It's very unlikely for there to be any sort of earthquake or landslide big enough between the Bahamas and South Florida for something to happen," Hagen explained. "But it’s not a zero percent chance."

Not all tsunami waves have to be large. It is possible to have a tsunami wave of only about a foot or so, which is unlikely to cause much damage, if any at all.

"Do we have a better chance of snow here? It just depends," Hagen said. "It snowed here in 1977.

And the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl just this past Sunday.

Photo by Paul Scicchitano