5. Coastal Safety
Concerned about beach safety? This collection offers insights into dangerous nearshore currents and waves in the Great Lakes.
One of the most important and often unrecognized threats along the shorelines of the Great Lakes are rip currents. While many consider rip currents (or undertow) to be a hazard on ocean coasts, the Great Lakes are often overlooked and thus beach goers assume a higher sense of safety in the environment than they should.
To learn more about rips and other dangerous nearshore currents, we recommend Michigan Sea Grant's web page.
Much of Sea Grant's information originates with the Great Lakes Water Safety Consortium - another good resources for parents, teachers and beach and park workers.
The national weather services offers two key resources regarding rip currents:
The Great Lakes Swim Season Summaries which features annual drowning data for all of the Great Lakes shorelines.
Rip Current Forecasting which shows a map of the daily swim risk around the Great Lakes.
Michigan Technological University also has a web page devoted to rip current data for the Michigan shorelines of Lakes Superior and Michigan.
In addition to rip currents, the Michigan Sea Grant web site has an excellent page linking you to information regarding other coastal hazards in the Great Lakes.