Rip Current and backwash examples
/Saw this whilst exploring some coast I’m not as familiar with as I’d like. Great example of a rip current and a strong backwash.
The biggest danger here are actually wave surges up the beach and the backwash. Dog walkers or walkers not paying attention, getting knocked over fully dressed and rolling down the beach! If you look at the conditions, it’s unlikely anyone would pop in for a swim…and if you did, the 4-6 foot shorebreak, breaking in 6 inches of water would be your main concern. The rip currents only go out just past the breaking waves…so are actually fairly tame…in isolation.
Rip currents are bodies of water that find themselves above sea level. In this example, a wave having flown up the beach. Once above sea level, the laws of gravity will dictate that this body of water returns to sea level. The body of water in question will naturally find the path of least resistance. On the video (although you can’t see it), there is a stream on the far right, flowing into the sea. This stream gauges a channel out of the beach and creates a natural flow of water into the sea… so you find a rip current here. The slopes either side of the stream encourage the water to flow down hill and the sea water joins the stream and flows out nice and easy. In the middle of the frame you see another rip current. The beach slopes into a slight valley (in the middle of the beach) and the water again, flows down the side of this ‘valley’ and out. The more water that does this, the more this valley has sand carried out with the current and the deeper this ‘valley’ becomes.
*There are actually 3 rip currents just in frame, one on the near side…but I didn’t want to make this article too confusing. You wouldn’t normally get 3 rip currents so close together but there is such a mass of water flowing up the beach with the swell and the beach is so steep, that the water returns back out to sea at high speed…if the waves were breaking further out, some of this energy would disperse naturally on the way in.