 Sorry about the noise, but that's our next guest. Enjoying the beautiful, beautiful California surfing music. Speaking of outdoor activities, Rip Currants have been making headlines lately due to 10 recent deaths along the Gulf of Mexico beaches across Florida's Panhandle's and Mobile, Alabama. That's been attributed to them. So we are lucky to have the first husband right here. Tim Deegan. First husband? Wow. Wow. That's what they named the spouse of female leaders of state or whatever. First dude is as high as I can get. OK, first dude it is. It's Tim Deegan, longtime meteorologist for First Coast News. And Avid Surfer is here with some tips on how to avoid Rip Currants and what to do if you see them. Well, I'll tell you, Tim, on Monday I saw a social media photo. I don't know where it was from, but it was taken from a hotel balcony. And it showed a riptide. It just showed that current of water being pulled right out. And we have them here. We have lost everybody from an ex-NFL football player to a firefighter from Georgia on the West Coast and the Bay County Sheriff annoyed that people, when their deputies tell them, don't go in the water. It's a double red flag warning. They get yelled at and cursed at. So you tell me, what causes a riptide? What causes that outflow that can take you out into nasty water where you can't swim? So just to underline what you talked about, as bad as hurricanes are, if you just look at the average deaths per year in Georgia and Florida, more people die from drownings than die from hurricanes. So it is a big problem. It's too bad, all of us that are at the beach, but at sea level, can't see what you talked about from the condo, right? We could all look down and see that. That's why to me, you should always go where the lifeguards are and listen to the lifeguards. But as far as your first question, what causes it? Like anything in nature, mother nature's trying to keep a balance. And so those waves are pushing water toward the ocean. I mean, toward the beach, it's gotta find a way out. And just like a river's current is gonna be strongest where that channel is, the ocean is gonna find where the channel is, and so the rip current wants to take you out. If I could, and I understand why we talk about the rip tide, the rip current, locals here tend to call it runouts. I understand why we focus on that. But let's face it, we all hear the tip. When you find yourself in a rip current, don't panic. If we're human, we're probably gonna panic. So I wanna attempt something this morning. And that is, as a prevention to keep you from getting in the rip current. I think sometimes something that we miss is when it's most dangerous. And I'm not gonna talk about the obvious. When it's stormy, when there's a hurricane, when there's a nor'easter, obviously that's dangerous. And I think for 95% of us, we won't get in there. We won't let our children in there. We'll talk to our mom about not getting in the ocean. And then there are those people that no matter what they will get in. But in my 42 years of watching the deaths that we have in Florida and Georgia, 90% of them happen when the ocean is like it is today. It's relatively calm. That's when people get in. What I would love for people to focus on, if they don't wanna be in the situation where they're floating in the rip current and they're panicking, even though everyone says, don't panic, I get it. After over 42 years of surfing, I do. Know when the high tide is. At high tide, within a couple hours, is when the waves, whatever size they are, will be most powerful right on the beach where you get in. The closer you get to lower tide, no matter the size of the wave, one foot or 10 foot, those bigger waves are gonna be farther off shore to where you're probably not even gonna get out there. Number one, number two at high tide is when you have your quickest drop-off from shallow water to deeper water, very often low tide, because our beach is pretty horizontal, you can go a long way before you get into deep water. So although it doesn't happen all the time, what I hear from lifeguards is frequently, it's near high tide, so it's a strong beach break, disorient a person. They fall in or start suddenly in deeper water than they expect to be, and then that water pulls them out toward the river current. So, and the nice thing about a high tide, and I say this as a meteorologist, is it's the most accurate part of the forecast because it's not weather forecasting, right? Tristly, it's astronomy. I could tell you 20 years from now, if you're gonna have a birthday party on the beach when high tide is, know when high tide is. And that's not me saying don't get in the water, but know when high tide is, respect that. And I think you can go a long way, at least to keep your family and friends safer. My worst memory of swimming in Jack's Beach was during high tide, one July, and I got walloped by a wave that literally took me off my feet and rolled me through the sand to the shore. You're nailing exactly, yes. And I don't think I've really gone much deeper than my thighs since then, and that's not because I'm scared of the water, it's just that that was such a vivid, pardon the pun, impact, to be rolled over the sand by the wave. And I know it was high tide, because I could see the condo where we were hanging out for a party. Yep. It wasn't the walk down the low tide sands. As a beach grower, what do you look for? I mean, do you look for suddenly a weird wave pattern that shows that the water's being pulled out? Well, you know, I mentioned high tide because we always give it in the forecast. You can get it on your cell phone. And so you know when it is. It's particularly significant here on the first coast because we have a six foot vertical difference from high tide to low tide. And so what that means is that low tide, you have this very shallow, gradual drop off that wouldn't have a wave knocking over it. High tide you do. So for instance, today high tide is at five in the afternoon. If I was going out there with family and friends after about three o'clock, I would have my antenna. It's, I mean, just like we look at the clock for other things, I would really, I think that could help a lot. If people really would focus, when is high tide today? The other thing they need to focus on, and this came from Bay County Sheriff, Tommy Ford wrote in a Facebook post this week that he's beyond frustrated at the situation that we have tragic and unnecessary deaths in the Gulf and that his deputies were being yelled at and cursed at when they would try to tell people don't go in the water. He even states that he has seen two people drown in riptides. So if the lifeguard is there and the red flags are flying and they're visible, they're visible when you drive on the beach, there's a sign. When you walk on the beach at the little boardwalk, there's a sign and there are flags flying from every lifeguard stand. Keep your eyes open and understand, red means only weight in the water, right? Right. And yeah, I mean, let's face it. We see people who do that kind of stuff in all kinds of situations. So I'm really talking about the nine out of 10 of us in which the tragedy happens because maybe a daughter is caught, a father goes out to save the daughter. I remember a situation in Amelia Island where there was a huge reunion. One person went to save someone. None of them could really swim well and next thing you know, we had eight drownings. Yes. So that's another thing, that if someone is in danger, of course you wanna go save them. But make sure you know what you're doing and if the option is yelling to get the lifeguard to help you versus you doing it, maybe you should do that. We had that incident with unfortunately the Ukrainian 19 year old boy that the people he went to go save ended up being okay. He ended up drowning himself. And we see that a lot where we're the hero and I say that in a positive way where the hero actually ends up being the one who drowns. And that image of the Baywatch TV show where the lifeguard is running with the float in their hand, the lifeguard has a float. If the lifeguard gets in trouble, the lifeguard has something to hold on to. But I'm glad you brought that up and that's why I think it was a fantastic segue that you had some surf music going because let's say the lifeguard's aren't around. Let's say it's up to you to be the hero. Grab something that floats. I'm really glad you brought that up. Grab a surfboard, grab something that floats. Number one, if you can get the drowning person, you can put them up on it. But another thing that unfortunately here tragically happens so many times the lifeguards tell me about this is that the hero, the person going in to save is surprised that the person who's drowning how strong they are. That very often the person who's drowning is panicking. They then grab the person who's trying to say it and pulls them down as well. Down you go, yes. If you have something that floats, I'm really glad you brought that up. You have something that floats and you're gonna help things exponentially. And everybody on the beach these days has an inflatable. So Tim Deegan, Chief Meteorologist, First Coast News, known you forever, have watched you, seen you. Thank you for the words of wisdom this weekend as thousands hit the beach and we're here at First Coast Connect. We'll be back with some more interesting Fourth of July news right after this.