On Friday morning, Meteolux tested Luxembourg's new warning system, LU-Alert, while issuing a real yellow alert for the entire country, leading to public confusion over which alerts were genuine.
Our colleagues at RTL also faced uncertainty when they received an email from a reader expressing concern:
"Yesterday, the system was officially presented and launched. However, today, a yellow rain warning was issued, but it does not appear on either the app or the website under ‘ongoing warnings’; only test alerts are visible. Could you please check again to confirm whether the system is functioning correctly?”
What had happened?
On Thursday, the Minister for Home Affairs presented the new national warning scheme, LU-Alert. The system operates under the principle of “Early warning – early action” and features various warning levels: yellow indicates a low risk, suggesting the situation is not yet dangerous; orange signals a mid to high risk; and red clearly represents a high risk. A newly added purple level signifies ‘imminent danger,’ requiring immediate action from the population.
To test the new software, a warning message indicating 'Floods' was sent on Thursday, followed by another on Friday stating 'Ice'. The first message was marked with "TEST," while the second was marked "TEST TEST TEST."
Both warnings can be found on the LU-Alert website.
Functional, but still being tested
Alongside the tests, an actual weather warning was communicated by Meteolux on Friday morning. The warning consisted of a potential danger posed by heavy rainfall in the night leading up to Saturday.
However, this yellow alert for continuous rain was not distributed by LU-Alert and could not be found on their site, sparking confusion among many people, including the individual who contacted RTL.
Upon further enquiry, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that the new system is still in a trial period, which had also been mentioned during the presentation.
Even though LU-Alert is operational, LU-Alert will only activate during a situation of imminent danger, bypassing the test phase.
The trial period is supposed to continue until 25 October, which includes one test message per month.
