Flash rips don’t last long, maybe a minute or two and this one wouldn’t have taken you far offshore, maybe 20 or 30 metres at most, but that’s far enough for someone who isn’t a good swimmer.

….it shows the yellow sign in front of the rip. You can’t read it on the picture, but it’s warning people not to swim there. Think it’s effective? I’m not so sure – I really think we can do better with beach safety signage in general.

Where’s the flash rip in the photo? Look offshore of the lifeguards blue rescue board and at the end of the whitewater region you’ll see churned up choppy and sandy water and then a narrow extension of turbulent water heading offshore into a bit of a mushroom cloud.

While the Mediterranean coast is not known for it’s surf, the south-west Atlantic coast certainly is as it receives consistent swell and is a surfing mecca in places. Surf, wine, cheese and baguettes. It’s a special place.

Little Diggers Beach is located in the Coffs Harbour region of New South Wales and has been the site of some rip current related drownings over the years. It’s not hard to see why –

This Rip of the Month is a bit different – it’s actually a poster that has been produced by the UNSW Sydney Faculty of Science.

It’s time to take a trip to North America, specifically the Pacific coast of Mexico where this fantastic drone picture shows a series of channelised rip currents stacked up along this high energy beach.

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.

While it’s harder to spot channelised rips from this perspective, it’s often easier to spot them by looking sideways along the beach – white is nice, green is mean!

Subtle. Dangerous. Those are the words to describe the rip current in this picture. In fact, it’s so subtle it’s almost impossible to see

Most of the Rip of the Month pictures use photographs taken from elevation looking down at the beach. While this is useful for pointing out what rips look like, they don’t necessarily help people spot rips when they are actually standing on the beach.

Several years ago Surf Life Saving Australia launched the ‘Think Line’ rip current safety campaign, which encourages beachgoers to draw an imaginary line in the sand when they go to the beach and think about rip currents.