Tornado Warning Creates Panic, Confusion At UMD

COLLEGE PARK, MD -- Monday's fierce storms spawned a tornado in the Richmond area, and initially there was panic at the University of Maryland as campus police tweeted a tornado warning -- indicating a tornado was in the area. However, it appeared to be an erroneous report, and local forecasters slammed police for sharing it.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for the general D.C. area Monday afternoon, but the UMD Police Department's Twitter account went a step further, issuing a tornado warning for the UMD campus.

"The sirens will be activated," the tweet reads. "Seek shelter immediately, avoid windows. When additional information becomes available we will provide an update. Seek shelter immediately."

UMD police extended the warning for the campus in a later tweet. They cancelled it a half hour later.

"The Tornado Warning that was issued by AccuWeather is now cancelled as of 6:00 PM," the tweet reads. "The rotation has shifted to the north. Please continue to remain vigilant as storms will remain in our area throughout the evening."

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang slammed the account for posting the warning.

"It creates substantial public confusion when you declare a warning that differs from the official government source," CWG tweeted. "Furthermore, the rotation in the storm was not near your location and the government was right. Your source was not."

In a statement, UMD noted that their police contracts with AccuWeather. AccuWeather sent their police a notification at 5:19 p.m. that a tornado "may be imminent" for our area, prompting the warnings.

"While weather-related incidents are often reported for broad geographic regions, AccuWeather targets the specific footprint of our campus community," the statement reads. "Weather monitoring is often monitored on a broader scale, and we issue alerts specific to our community of more than 50,000 to ensure that safety messages are quickly and accurately conveyed to our campus community. As soon as we were alerted that the storm path shifted, we issued an 'all clear' message to our community."

(Photo by Brian Davidson/Getty Images)