Met Office ‘threat to life’ hot weather alerts sent in error

Severe weather alerts warning of a “significant threat to life” appeared on phones across the UK due to a testing error, the Met Office has said.

Notifications warned of severe weather events including high temperatures, snow, ice and rain in different parts of the country on Thursday. The test alerts, issued by a third party aggregator, were not intended to be seen by the public.

One person on social media shared a screenshot of an alert warning of “severe high temperature” next to the forecast of 4C (39F) in Stockport.

The Met Office, which is responsible for weather warnings in the UK, confirmed the test warnings had now been removed.

Some warnings told recipients to “take action immediately” but also included description text that referred to it being a test warning.

Information contained in the alerts explained that the Met Office test warnings had been issued via a meteorological aggregator that sends weather alerts to a number of places including Apple devices.

It is thought that the testing error occurred during this aggregation process.

A Met Office spokesperson said: “We are aware of an issue where some test weather warnings were displaying on some websites and apps, we’ve worked with partners to ensure these test warnings have now been removed.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience, there are currently no Met Office Severe Weather Warnings in force as of 14:00 Thursday 28 November.”

It is unclear how many people received the warnings, but many posted on X to say they had seen them.

On Apple devices, users have to manually allow severe weather warning alerts to be sent as notifications to their phones. This is done through the phone’s weather app.

Many parts of the UK have seen disruptive weather over the last week as Storm Bert hit, causing flooding, strong winds and snowfall.

After a dry and cold day for most of the country on Thursday, forecasters say that spells of heavy rain could hit some areas later in the evening.

In October, a fault with the BBC Weather website and app led to incorrect forecasts of impossibly high wind speeds.

Graphics warned of hurricanes and showed estimated wind speeds of 13,508mph in London and 5,293mph in Rome, as well as temperatures of 404C in Nottingham and 384C in New York.

The issue was caused by a data issue with a third-party supplier and was later fixed.