Talk:Rip current

Initial comment

The lifeguard page linked says "The United States Lifesaving Association estimates that the annual number of deaths due to rip currents on our nation's beaches exceeds 100", while the wikipedia page says 1000 deaths/year. Presumably this should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.110.227.93 (talk • contribs)

Yes, 1000 deaths, or even 100 are far too many. We should we everything possible to change this situation and make more swimmers aware of the dangers of entering the water! Ewlyahoocom 01:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

-I changed the passage that suggested that undertow and rip tide are incorrect terms. I hate it when people say what terms are somehow incorrect, by that logic most words are incorrect since they don't litterally represent what they are named after.- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Julian Diamond (talk • contribs)

Dangers

"A common misconception is that a rip occurring under the water, instead of on top — an undertow — is strong enough to drag people under the water; this is not true."

I don't think this statement is true. I've been in each of the Great Lakes during high waves (+2m) and I can tell you without hesitation that the "undertow" effect can most certainly pull a person off their feet if standing in the water, and quite possibly under the surface if one is not prepared. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.23.9 (talk • contribs)

Undertow

• Undertow is a misnomer for a rip current, sort of like calling a tornado a twister (but worse..). The reference of the phrase "undertow" to the phoneme of a rip current is discouraged. 71.200.92.220 01:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Can someone who knows please add a real section about Undertow? Undertow is a disambiguation page which (wrongly or rightly) suggests Rip current.

• http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/glossary.shtml writes: "Undertow: There is spirited discussion and disagreement among coastal scientists on the existence of a nearshore process called "undertow," and hence there is not an agreed on definition for this word. Undertow is a term often and incorrectly used for rip currents. The best explanation for what many people attribute to "undertow" is as follows: After a wave breaks and runs up the beach, most of the water flows seaward; this "backwash" of water can trip waders, move them seaward, and make them susceptible to immersion from the next incoming wave; however, there is no surf zone force that pulls people under the water";
• http://www.usla.org/ripcurrents/glossary.asp offers the more concise: "Undertow: Different than a Rip Current!"

Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 01:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As waves propagate toward shore, there is a net shoreward mass transport (called Stokes drift) which occurs between crest and trough. As the wave breaks, the mass transport is increased. The return current is distributed between the bottom and the trough of the wave. When averaged over a wave period, this is what is typically called the "undertow". The difference between this and rip currents is that an undertow will always occur - it is simply a consequence of the mass balance. When the surf is very energetic, the undertow increases in strength correspondingly. Rip currents, however, depend on spatial variability in breaking to occur. Jmkstrat 00:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Backwash Current The receding swash on the beach face, after a wavebreaks, joins the seaward movement of the wave trough tword the next incoming crest. The same orbital wave movement that causes a ball to bob up and down on the water causes the trough to move back and up toward the next wave crest. This is not what the word "undertow" suggests, and this term should not be used.

Seaward Currents This is an umbrella term that excludes only littoral currents. All surf zone currents are either littoral (along the shore) or seaward (away from shore).

Article Contradicts Self

Not only does the article lack a section on undertow, but in one place the article says a rip current is "not to be confused with an undertow", then later it says, "a rip occurring under the water, instead of on top — an undertow". The first statement implies they are mutually exclusive terms, and the second implies that undertows are rip currents. 198.70.193.2 (talk) 22:22, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Causes and occurrence

I added a brief paragraph explaining the rip current mechanism in terms of radiation stress. Jmkstrat 00:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletions

I think that the third paragraph under Dangers should be deleted, as it is redundant and unnecessary, and appears to be taken from a news article and is not written in encyclopedic style. MHKathmandu 22:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

How to Get Out of a Rip Current

Shouldn't there be something about how to get out of a rip current? I don't see why it's been repeatedly erased since it's really the only useful knowledge applicable to the real world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.174.23.136 (talk) 23:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

... Cdg18 (talk) 06:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think it would fall foul of WP:NOTHOWTO  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

And would that advice be to tread water? Fred Talk 14:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should, because that information could save a life. Hanxu9 (talk) 01:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe it is entirely possible to include that info without turning the article into a "how-to" manual. So I added it. One can swim a few stokes parallel to the shore to exit the rip, or one can tread water or float on one's back to let the rip carry you to where it is going and then decide what to do, either swim back to shore via a safe route or signal for help if you can't swim well enough. Invertzoo (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Quite correct. The information can easily be included as a direct corollary of the nature of a rip current. It is unnecessary to distort perfectly natural material in legalistic obeisance to rules that lose their relevance out of context. JonRichfield (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

New research

The results of new research will soon be published. Fred Talk 14:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Terminology

The term Rip current here stated is incorrect. There is a major difference between a riptide and hence the undertoe and something called Rip current. Currents move perpendicular to the shore line and flow only in one direction. The term 'rip current' is now being used by weather forcasters and media reporting services and is wrong. Where the term is incorrectly used, the user should be corrected so that organizations such as the US Lifesaving Association will not provide inaccurate information. The swells come in and the undertoe goes out and the current runs against the surf!!! Please get is right. There is actually no such thing as a rip current. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.71.223.29 (talk) 13:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, but your description is hard to follow. Invertzoo (talk) 19:40, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Ref #7

Ref. #7 has crapped out. TheoThoughts (talk) 14:29, 28 August 2011 (UTC)