SARASOTA COUNTY – Tropical Storm Fred is not only bringing heavy rainfall to the Suncoast.
“We have a high rip current risk lasting until Monday morning for the coastal counties of Sarasota, Manatee, Lee and Charlotte,” said SNN Meteorologist, Leslie London.
“Even though it’s further out in the coast, it still has strong wind gusts and that can impact the currents and cause higher risks for rip currents,” said London.
The rough waters might have you reconsider your beach day, as rip currents can sweep even the best swimmers away from shore into deeper water.
“They can move at one to two feet per second, but they’ve actually measured some that can move at 8 feet per second and that’s actually faster than any Olympic swimmer has ever been measured to swim,” said London.
However some Sarasota County residents took advantage of the impacts
“We like the current, the current helps us, the surfers love it, they don’t have to paddle as hard when they go down to the waves, as for us, it helps us get more speed,” said Sarasota County resident, Mikey Sanderlin.
“Normally the rip is really light, you don’t have a big pullout, right now the rip is going north of the shore so it’s good how the waves are going right now for skimming, but for swimming it’s probably not a really good idea,” said Sanderlin.
It is always advised to swim near a lifeguard and if caught in a rip current, relax and float, and don’t try to swim against it
“A lot of times those currents don’t last too far past the shore, so eventually it will come to an end, for a lot of people the issue is that they exhaust themselves trying to fight the current, that’s why it’s important to just relax, try to swim parallel and get out of it,” said London.
For more information on beach conditions, you can go to VisitBeaches.Org here.
