NWS Communications, AFS’s Marine, Tropical, and Tsunami Services Branch, and NOS Senior Scientist Dr. Greg Dusek, hosted a “Rip Current Awareness: Know Before You Go” webinar to highlight the dangers of rip currents and how to stay safe at the beach as we look ahead to Labor Day and the last of summer weather. The goal of the webinar was to help beach-goers identify how to stay safe while visiting the ocean, recognize a rip current, and how to survive getting caught in one while swimming. The short, 30-minute format webinar took place on June 26, 2018 at 11:30 a.m. from NWS Headquarters. It combined current messaging with a Q&A session so that WCMs, SCHs and their contacts could hear the most up to date information available and pass along these safety tips to their communities and viewers.

The Rip Current Awareness: Know Before You Go webinar series will continue to help protect people on beach vacations and during the rest of the summer season. The next webinar will happen before Labor Day, a holiday typically seen as the unofficial end of summer, and is often when lifeguards are finished with their duties at most seasonal beaches. In past years, the number of rip current reported deaths have surged at the end of summer. Together, NWS and NOS will offer safety tips and best practices to help prevent this from happening again.

To view the webinar, click here or view it below.

For more rip current safety information, visit our rip current safety page.