COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Students and staff at the University of Maryland, College Park were surprised when tornado sirens started to ring throughout campus Monday afternoon.
Around 5:40 p.m., the University of Maryland Police Department alerted campus that a tornado warning had been issued for campus.
The police department said it decided to publicize the warning after consulting with a meteorologist at AccuWeather.
UMPD has a contract with AccuWeather that directs the company to warn campus officials whenever bad weather may be headed toward campus.
"A police car came by with a siren and he said, 'this is a tornado warning, seek shelter immediately,'" UMD student Gloria Nwanwa said.
However, at the time the warning was issued, no tornado producing storm was near campus. UMD student Jordan Dowtin-Dorsey said it was raining with barely any wind.
"As we were walking, the noise came on every 20 seconds, and I'll be honest, it's not the most pleasant sound," she said.
Many jurisdictions rely on the National Weather Service to officially issue tornado warnings and watches before they turn on tornado sirens.
UMPD released the following statement around 7 p.m. after receiving criticism on social media for its decision to turn its sirens on throughout campus:
"The safety of our campus community is our foremost priority. In the interest of public safety, the University of Maryland Police Department contracts with AccuWeather to receive real-time information on storm paths approaching the footprint of our campus community.
When we receive alerts, we call AccuWeather to discuss what impact a storm could have on our campus and decide if a campus wide-alert is needed.
At approximately 5:19 p.m., we received notification from AccuWeather that a tornado may be imminent for our area. Based upon the warning and our conversation with their meteorologist, in the best interest of life and safety, we notified our campus community to seek shelter via text and email and sounded the siren.
At approximately 5:42 p.m., we received an update from AccuWeather that the warning was extended to 6:10 p.m and updated our alert.
At approximately 6 p.m., we received notification from AccuWeather that the warning for our campus was canceled as the rotation had shifted off to the north.
While weather-related incidents are often reported for broad geographic regions, AccuWeather targets the specific footprint of our campus community. 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."
