There’s good beach weather this weekend. But there’s a reason to stay out of the water
Unlike much of the nation, South Florida has some beach weather in store for the weekend, with highs in a comfy low 80s, upper 70s extending into the work week.
Not much of a rain chance, either, until Tuesday when there is a 60% chance of showers and thunderstorms ahead of some cooler air that will move in and take temperatures down about 10 degrees later in the week.
Saturday afternoon’s 30% chance of rain is the highest until Tuesday. By nightfall, it should be perfect for the Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade Saturday evening in Fort Lauderdale.
The parade is a 12-mile route along the New River and Intracoastal Waterway north to Lake Santa Barbara in Pompano Beach.
So why is there a National Weather Service in Miami hazardous weather outlook and statement Saturday morning?
Blame in on dangerous rip currents in the tri-county area — Miami, Broward and Palm Beach — through Saturday night.
“Rip currents can sweep even the best swimmers away from shore into deeper water,” the National Weather Service warns.
What you should do if you get caught in a rip current
▪ Stay calm if a rip current pulls at you in the water.
“It’s not going to pull you underwater, it’s just going to pull you away from shore, said NOAA’s Greg Dusek on Ocean Today.
▪ Float.
“You want to float, and you don’t want to swim back to shore against the rip current because it will just tire you out,” Duskek wrote on the NOAA website.
Oceanographer Jamie MacMahan, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, suggested “giving in and going with the flow” in a 2016 story in Outside magazine. “If you can relax—and it’s a long time, for maybe three minutes—you’re generally going to float back to the beach,” MacMahan said in Outside.
This is when you can also ...
▪ Call for a lifeguard’s help. Make it easier on yourself by swimming near a lifeguard station to start with.
And the standard advice suggests ...
▪ Swim parallel to the shore, along the beach to more easily work your way out of the rip. “Follow the breaking waves back to the shore at an angle,” Dusek said.
