'Very confusing' weather alert sent to hundreds of phones

The alert comes after much of the UK battles snow and ice

Confusion has been caused by the alert which warned of ‘severe high temperatures’(Image: Getty Images)

Push notifications have been sent to people up and down the country from the Apple Weather app. Confusion has been caused by the alert which warned of ‘severe high temperatures’.

Much of the UK has been covered in a blanket of snow and ice over the last few weeks as temperatures have plummeted, so people were not impressed with the ‘test’ notification. Upon clicking the alert, the affected areas listed are North West England, South West Scotland, Lothian Borders, Wales and Yorkshire & Humber.

The temperature warning seems to have been issued via Meteoalarm, a website that provides early warnings for severe weather in Europe. In the description of the warning on the Apple app, it states ‘test warning Y without WSID’.

Taking to Twitter, @GrantHolmes1994 said: “Erm … #MeteoAlarm hate to break it to you but it is in operational use #appleweather” alongside an image of the alert and a screenshot of the Meteoalarm website showing the high temperature alert with start and end date ‘28.11.2024 / 10.46’ and end date ‘29.11.2024 / 23.59’.

The screenshot from Meteoalarm.org also said “TEST SCENARIO – NOT FOR OPERATIONAL USE.. RW.” And in lower case letters, continued: “Test warning Y without WSID.”

Confusion has been caused by the alert which warned of ‘severe high temperatures’(Image: Courtney Eales)

Another post on X, from @Ian_F_Campbell stated: “Hi@metoffice @MeteoalarmEu is this #SevereWeatherWarning real or a test? It looks real on weather app but met office link shows no warning and on Meteoalarm it says it is a test. Very confusing, or am I or my iPhone doing something wrong?”

And on Facebook there was further confusion with people baffled by the alert. One post said “I just got this but it doesn’t make sense, severe high temperature warning???? It’s freezing out there.” Another wrote “Phone pinged to tell me this!!! Haha says 3 degrees “severe high temperature warning” Well done IPhone.”