Event narrative (NOAA)
A forty-eight year old male from New Mexico drowned in rough surf near Henderson State Park. The man was swimming with his son when they were caught in a strong rip current. Bystanders were able to pull the two out of the water. The boy was unharmed but the father was unconscious and could not be revived. Tropical Storm Allison had moved North out of the western Gulf of Mexico into eastern Texas the day before. At the same time, strong High pressure was centered off the southeast Atlantic coast. The gradient between the low pressure to the west and the high pressure to the east, produced a persistent strong southerly wind flow over the coastal waters of the western Florida panhandle. This, combined with larger than normal swells which were propagated off Tropical Storm Allison, p
Other notable rip current events in Florida
Source: NOAA/NCEI Storm Events Database. Deaths and injuries are those NOAA classifies as direct. Damage is the reporting office's estimate at the time and is not inflation-adjusted. This is a catalogue record, not a forecast.