Tornado sirens in Miami County signal false alarm

A volunteer firefighter who reported seeing funnel clouds prompted a Miami County 911 dispatcher to activate tornado sirens at about 8:43 Tuesday night as a precaution, a dispatcher said, but no rotation was seen in any clouds.

Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Jamie Simpson said there are no tornadoes or funnel clouds across the area, just some turbulent clouds that are caused when rain moves into an area of drier air, which is leading to a weakening of showers.

According to sheriff’s dispatch, sirens were activated in Troy, West Milton, Pleasant Hill and Tipp City. The firefighter called the sheriff’s dispatch a second time to say that he had been mistaken.

The Miami County sheriff’s dispatch, through supervisor Felicia Potter, issued the following release at about 9:30 p.m.: “Tonight the tornado sirens were activated in the southern portion of our county due to the report of a funnel cloud moving NE towards [sic] Miami County from the Furnace Rd[sic] area / behind the airport.

“The caller stated he was a volunteer fire department member and felt that he saw what was a funnel cloud on the ground along with a wall cloud moving NE. In these circumstances when a caller can be identified who will leave a name and contact information and state they are witnessing something like this; tornado sirens will be set off.

“We called Wilmington (National Weather Service), and they stated they did not have any rotation on the radar. All appears to be clear at this time.

“For further information we are communicating with some of the other departments in Montgomery County now and this seems to be a false report. We will be talking to the Sergeant [sic] working for the Miami County Sheriff’s Department reference this information and following up.”

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