ALBANY — The National Weather Service said the unintentional distribution of a false flooding alert sent earlier this week to some phones in the Albany area originated with a cellphone service provider.
Christopher Gitro, the meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service office in Albany, said the warning sent on Wednesday, a day marked by sunshine and no significant rainfall, was a redistribution of an alert sent on July 29, a day when part of upstate New York experienced flooding in the wake of torrential rains.
He added Wednesday’s alert was “inadvertently rebroadcast to the public by the carrier, which is actively investigating the root cause and has confirmed that this is an isolated incident.”…