May 2023 (ROTM#173) Avoca Beach, NSW, Australia

It’s back to Avoca Beach on the Central Coast of New South Wales this month in a continuation of last month’s Rip of the Month. My colleague David Edwards from UNSW Sydney took several pictures…one looking to the south (last month’s ROTM) and one to the north – this one!

It shows a very similar channelised rip current from the perspective of the back of the beach. The rip current is the gap of darker water - where no waves are breaking – between the areas of whitewater – where the waves are breaking across shallow sandbars. The rip is fed by a feeder current flowing along the shoreline before turning offshore into the main rip channel.

 One thing to remember about these channelised rip currents is that when they form, they can remain in the same location for days and weeks and are generally spaced about 150 metres apart along the beach on beaches in New South Wales. If you look even further down the beach you can see another dark gap (channelised rip) heading offshore and you can also see the embayment it’s carved out on the beach.

Looking down the beach - look for those dark gaps