Going into the ocean is not always the safest endeavor. While many people fear sharks and other creatures that lurk beneath the waves, they're more at risk of falling victim to a rip current. These powerful events have caused 19 deaths at U.
S. beaches this year, according to the National Weather Service. "The stronger the current, the more dangerous it'll be," said Cristina Schultz, Foley Family assistant professor in marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University.
According to Dalton Sasaki, an oceanographer and postdoctoral research associate at Northeastern, rip currents are created by iterations of waves breaking near the shore line. The differing heights of these waves means they don't all have the same distribution of water. Near the coast this can cause a buildup, which then streams back into the ocean, often in one particular point, creating a powerful rip current.
"Rip currents are perpendicular to the topography," Sasaki said. "They go in the offshore direction. They are generated by interactions of the waves.
" Rip currents occur at many beaches across the United States. "They're really hard to predict, because they're not going to be the same thing for every beach," Schultz said. Sasaki said that while there's no definitive way to predict where rip currents will occur, they are common in areas with man-made structures that interfere with the tide, as well as on the West Coast, which has more underwater canyons.
Some rip currents are readily identifiab.
