New York, 2019

Rip Current in New York, October 1, 2019

October 1, 2019 · NWS OKX · 1 event in 1 county or zone

Energetic swells from Hurricane Lorenzo resulted in high surf and dangerous rip current conditions on October 1st.

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it; 1 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.

  • Tornadoes
  • Tropical storms and surge
  • Floods
  • Wind
  • Hail
  • Winter weather
  • Heat and drought
  • Cold
  • Fire, smoke and dust
  • Marine and coastal
  • Other

Open the live radar over this ground

The toll

Deaths
2
Injuries
1
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 OKX wrote it up.

Energetic swells from Hurricane Lorenzo resulted in high surf and dangerous rip current conditions on October 1st.

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 New York, NY wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Oct 1, 1:03 PM EST, 1 hour 57 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Oct 1, 1:03 PM EST, 1 hour 57 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Oct 1, 3:29 AM EST, 11 hours 31 minutes before
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The radar

The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

1 rip current. Local standard time, as filed.

Rip Current, Southern Queens

When
October 1, 3:00 PM EST to 4:00 PM EST
Where
Southern Queens forecast zone
Deaths
2 direct, 0 indirect
Injuries
1 direct, 0 indirect
Reported by
Newspaper
Coordinates
40.658, -73.839 (the zone’s center; the record gives no point)

An initial report of three missing teens came in at 3:32 p.m. on Tuesday. The boys were unaccounted for after wading into the water near Beach 96th Street and Shore Front Parkway in Queens around 3:30 p.m, police said. When rescue crews arrived, they found one of the teenagers, a 15-year-old boy, had been rescued by a good Samaritan, the police said. A witness said the rescuer was a surfer.

That boy told officers that his friends, one 15, the other 16, were still in the water. No lifeguards have been on duty there since the end of beach season in September.

The police, Fire Department divers and the Coast Guard began a rescue operation, with the latter sending crews from stations in Jones Beach and Sandy Hook. Police boats cruised slowly along the surf as the sun descended. But by evening, the operation had shifted to recovery, with officers searching for swimmers presumed drowned.

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.

EventDateAgeSexWhereKind
Rip Current, Southern Queens2019-10-0115MaleIn WaterDirect
Rip Current, Southern Queens2019-10-0116MaleIn WaterDirect

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

More

Every storm in New York in 2019Every state in 2019This day in weather historyWarnings in New York, October 2019

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 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 848560.