The National Weather Service alarmed some students this morning when it issued an alert warning Milwaukee residents of an incoming tornado. However, it turned out the warning was nothing more than a test of the system.

“Tornado Warning in this area til 10:45 CST,” a text message sent by the service read. “Take shelter now. Check local media.”

The text, which was sent at approximately 10:30 a.m. was followed by a message from the university’s Blackboard SMS service about 30 minutes later, which clarified that the earlier warning was just a test.

The NWS made an online statement Feb. 27 announcing the test and said the test would be conducted only to test internal communication systems.

“The March 4th test tornado warning will not be relayed as a wireless emergency alert /wea/ on mobile devices such as smartphones,” the statement read.

Following the accidental release of the message, the NWS quickly released an apology for the message from Jeff Crazen of the service’s Sullivan, Wis., station saying the mistake was due to a case of human error.

“We issued this warning with a (Valid Time Event) 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,” Crazen said in a statement. “There was no threat of a tornado, and we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that this caused.”