I know my explanation was lengthy, but the point is prior to whatever changes occurred in the past couple of weeks, when I logged on, there were markers (dots, not hearts like a favorite) visible where I had set alerts. I clicked those markers and the forecast appeared.
My first question was why the markers were no longer visible, but when I reviewed my alerts, I saw the notice that they were being migrated. Now that I have set both favorites and alerts, I only see the favorites icon when I have selected to make them visible.
May not be a bug, but definitely is a change from the way it previously was visualized with no action on my part to select something I had previously set as an alert.