[12], As an alternative, people who are caught in a strong rip can simply relax (either floating or treading water) and allow the current to carry them until it dissipates completely once it is beyond the surf line. According to NOAA, over a 10-year average, rip currents cause 46 deaths annually in the United States, and 64 people died in rip currents in 2013. A noticeable break in the pattern of the waves — the water often looks flat at the rip, in contrast to the lines of breaking waves on either side of the rip. Rip current are always a factor every year and can be fatal if you get caught up in one. The colored flags reflect actual, current … The sun, the sand, and the surf. When the water in the rip current reaches outside of the lines of breaking waves, the flow disperses sideways, loses power, and dissipates in what is known as the "head" of the rip. Despite him being a great athlete and swimmer, the rip current was stronger. Local underwater topography makes some beaches more likely to have rip currents; a few beaches are notorious in this respect. Rip currents often look somewhat like a road or river running straight out to sea, and they are easiest to notice and identify when the zone of breaking waves is viewed from a high vantage point. Often, it is not possible to swim directly back to shore against a rip current, so this is not recommended. To balance this, the local mean surface level drops; this is known as the setdown. A rip current, often simply called a rip (or misleadingly a rip tide), is a specific kind of water current that can occur near beaches with breaking waves. The vorticity and inertia of rip currents have been studied. Rip currents are usually quite narrow, but they tend to be more common, wider, and faster, when and where breaking waves are large and powerful. Watch this movie of the NOAA’s National Ocean Service about rip currents. However, most rip currents are fairly narrow, and even the widest rip currents are not very wide; usually swimmers can exit the rip easily by swimming at a right angle to the flow, parallel to the beach. They cut through the line of breaking waves and are strong near the water's surface. Rip currents can occur in areas with hard-bottom (rocky) or soft-bottom (sand or silt) beach topography. Rip currents, once they have formed, may deepen the channel through a sandbar. In a rip current, death by drowning occurs when a person has limited water skills and panics, or when a swimmer persists in trying to swim to shore against a strong rip current, and thus eventually becomes exhausted and drowns. A rip current (rip tide) is an isolated ocean current that moves away from the beach. This makes rip currents especially dangerous to beachgoers as these currents can sweep even the strongest swimmer out to sea. He had been missing for three days after he was swept away by a powerful rip current on Whitecap Beach. Rip currents are strong, narrow, seaward flows of water that extend from close to the shoreline to outside of the surf zone. A rip current is a strong flow of water running from a beach back to the open ocean, sea, or lake. Rip currents have a characteristic appearance, and, with some experience, they can be visually identified from the shore before entering the water. This strong flow is the rip current. Waves interacting with each other can also cause short-lived rip currents. Water that has been pushed up near the beach flows along the shore towards the outgoing rip as "feeder currents", and then the excess water flows out at a right angle to the beach, in a tight current called the "neck" of the rip. Will a life jacket save you in a rip current? Rips are complex, can quickly change shape and location, and at times, are difficult to see. Rip current speeds are typically 2 to 3 feet per second and extend about 200 feet offshore. These characteristics are helpful in learning to recognize and understand the nature of rip currents. A rip current is a strong flow of water running from a beach back to the open ocean, sea, or lake. Moving at speeds of up to eight feet per second, rip currents can move faster than an Olympic swimmer. Swim parallel to the shore and swim back to land at an angle. A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water which moves directly away from the shore, cutting through the lines of breaking waves like a river running out to sea. This is not true, and in reality a rip current is strongest close to the surface, as the flow near the bottom is slowed by friction. Because of these factors, rip currents are the leading cause of rescues by lifeguards at beaches, and are the cause of an average of 46 deaths by drowning per year in the United States. 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