Rip Current in Guam, December 4 to 5, 2014

Name: Rip Current in Guam, December 4 to 5, 2014
Start: 2014-12-04T18:00
End: 2014-12-05T00:00
Location: Guam

December 4 to 5, 2014 · NWS GUM · 1 event in 1 county or zone

Strong currents generated by a rising tide were present across the south coast of Guam.

The toll

Deaths: 1
Injuries: 0
Property damage: None recorded
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 1

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

What happened

The episode as NWS GUM wrote it up.

Strong currents generated by a rising tide were present across the south coast of Guam.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Guam wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Dec 4, 7:15 AM UTC, 45 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Dec 4, 7:15 AM UTC, 45 minutes before

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TIYAN GU
515 PM CHST THU DEC 4 2014

.MARIANAS SYNOPSIS...
AS SUPER TYPHOON HAGUPIT MOVES FARTHER AWAY INTO THE PHILIPPINE
SEA...ONLY PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES AND ISOLATED TRADE-WIND SHOWERS WERE
EVIDENT OVER THE FORECAST ZONES AND UPSTREAM ALL THE WAY TO 170E.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO FORECAST REASONING OR GRIDS. MINOR
TRADE-WIND DISTURBANCES WILL BRIEFLY ENHANCE CLOUD AND SHOWER
COVERAGE FROM TIME TO TIME...BUT OVERALL CLOUD AND SHOWER COVERAGE
WILL REMAIN PARTLY CLOUDY AND ISOLATED...RESPECTIVELY. MODEL TIME
HEIGHTS SHOW DEPTH OF LOW-LEVEL MOISTURE WILL BE LIMITED TO 700 MB
OR BELOW THROUGH THE FORECAST PERIOD.

&&

.MARINE...
LONG PERIOD SWELL FROM HAGUPIT HAVE BEEN SUBSIDING ALL DAY...
ALLOWING SEAS AND SURF TO FALL BELOW ADVISORY LEVELS. HAVE CANCELLED
BOTH ADVISORIES ACCORDINGLY. SURGING TRADE WINDS WERE FAST ENOUGH TO
TOUCH SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY LEVELS BRIEFLY THIS MORNING...BUT A COLD
FRONT AND DEVELOPING LOW PRESSURE NEAR JAPAN HAVE BEGUN TO WEAKEN
THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE...ALLOWING WINDS TO SUBSIDE. NEXT TRADE-WIND
SURGE IS OVER THE WEEKEND AS THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE REBUILDS...BUT
ADVISORIES ARE NOT ANTICIPATED. WEST SWELL FROM HAGUPIT WILL ENTER
THE LOCAL AREA BY THE COMING WEEKEND. WAVE WATCH MODEL HAS BEEN
SLOWLY BACKING OFF ON THE SWELL HEIGHTS...BUT FUTURE SHIFTS WILL
NEED TO MONITOR THE FETCH GENERATION AREA IN THE VICINITY OF HAGUPIT
TO MAKE SURE MODEL GUIDANCE IS NOT TOO LOW.

&&

.EASTERN MICRONESIA...
WEAK SURFACE TROUGHING REMAINS ACROSS THE REGION THIS EVENING AS
SHOWERS AND CLOUDS RAPIDLY CLEAR OUT. MODELS INITIALIZE WELL WITH
SATELLITE IMAGERY ESTABLISHING A DRIER PATTERN NEXT FEW DAYS AS THE
SURFACE TROUGH CONTINUES TO WEAKEN AND LIGHT TRADES RESUME OVER THE
WEEKEND. FORECAST REFLECTS THIS WITH IMPROVED WEATHER CONDITIONS
TONIGHT AND THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS WITH NO MAJOR WEATHER FEATURES
EXPECTED THROUGH EARLY NEXT WEEK.

HIGH SURF ADVISORIES REMAIN IN EFFECT FOR CHUUK AND POHNPEI TONIGHT.
THE LARGE NORTH SWELL WILL SUBSIDE THIS EVENING AND SHOULD ALLOW
SURF ACROSS CHUUK AND POHNPEI TO DROP BELOW ADVISORY LEVELS BY
FRIDAY MORNING.

&&

.WESTERN MICRONESIA...
FAIR WEATHER IS ALSO SEEN AT CHUUK THIS EVENING. PLEASANT CONDITIONS
WILL PERSIST INTO FRIDAY MORNING. THE EXCEPTION FOR TONIGHT WILL
BE THAT A SHEAR-LINE FRAGMENT IS CURRENTLY LOCATED JUST NORTH OF
POHNPEI. IF THIS HOLDS TOGETHER AND CONTINUES TRACKING TOWARDS
CHUUK...CLOUDIER SKIES AND MORE SHOWERS WILL BE POSSIBLE OVERNIGHT.
MODELS SPIN UP A WEAK CIRCULATION SOUTH OF YAP FRIDAY MORNING AND
BRING IT NORTH OR NORTHWEST FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SATURDAY.
THIS COULD GENERATE ISOLATED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS THEN. IN
THE LONGER-TERM...PLEASANT WEATHER IS EXPECTED TO BUILD IN FROM
THE EAST.

WEATHER RAPIDLY IMPROVED THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON AT KOROR AND
YAP. SUPER TYPHOON HAGUPIT CONTINUES TOWARDS THE WEST-NORTHWEST AWAY
FROM BOTH LOCALES. SCATTERED SHOWERS ARE STILL SEEN IN AN OUTER BAND
ACROSS PARTS OF YAP STATE AND WEST OF KOROR. WILL HAVE TO WATCH
OVERNIGHT IN CASE THESE SHOWERS MOVE OVER THE ISLANDS. WINDS AND
WEATHER WILL CONTINUE TO TAPER THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS WITH LIGHT
SOUTHEAST TO EAST WINDS DEVELOPING OVER THE WEEKEND AT BOTH YAP AND
KOROR. DRIER WEATHER STILL EXPECTED BY NEXT WEEK.

SUPER TYPHOON HAGUPIT WILL MAINTAIN CHOPPY SEAS AND HAZARDOUS
SURF ACROSS THE REPUBLIC OF PALAU AND YAP STATE TONIGHT. FOR
FRIDAY...SURF AND SEAS COULD BRIEFLY FALL BELOW HAZARDOUS LEVELS.
HOWEVER...A NEW SET OF LONG-PERIOD WEST SWELLS GENERATED BY
HAGUPIT WILL CAUSE SURF AND SEAS TO BUILD AGAIN TO HAZARDOUS
LEVELS BY EARLY SATURDAY MORNING.

&&

.GUM WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
GU...NONE.
MARIANAS WATERS...NONE.
&&

MCELROY/M. AYDLETT

Event by event

1 rip current. Local standard time, as filed.

Rip Current, Guam

When: December 4, 6:00 PM GST to December 5, 12:00 AM GST
Where: Guam forecast zone
Deaths: 1 direct, 0 indirect
Reported by: Newspaper

On the morning of December 5th a small group of men went Spearfishing along the south coast of Guam. A member of the group, a 38 year old male, became separated|from the rest. A partner of the fisherman stated that he heard the man cry for help. As the members of the group did not have adequate lighting equipment, they could not locate him. He was reported overdue at 3:45 a.m., and unfortunately the body |of the fisherman, Darwin Timothy, was found alone on the west side of Achang Bay on the south shore of Guam at 6:30 a.m.

At the time of the incident, the tide was incoming. The Merizo Mayor stated in a KUAM news interview that the currents will go toward Cocos island when the tide comes in. It was reported that the men were not from this area, and probably were not familiar with the local currents.

The people who died

As the offices recorded each death: direct deaths were caused by the weather itself, indirect ones by something it set in motion.

Event	Date	Age	Sex	Where	Kind
Rip Current, Guam	2014-12-05	38	Male	In Water	Direct

What these are

Rip Current: A narrow, fast current flowing away from the beach that caused a drowning or rescue.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

Every storm in Guam in 2014 Every state in 2014 This day in weather history Warnings in Guam, December 2014

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 553953.