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Cold water remains dangerous despite Seattle heatwave

May 12, 2023, 3:39 PM | Updated: Aug 14, 2023, 2:16 pm

Cole water...

Think twice before you dive into cold lakes and rivers this weekend. (Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

With the Seattle heatwave arriving this weekend, water holes around the Puget Sound will be filled with people wanting to jump in. But beware, the water is still dangerously cold.

鈥淲here are our water temperatures right now? I spent some time yesterday looking this up,” 成人X站 Newsradio meteorologist Ted Buehner said. “If we look at our rivers coming out of the Cascades, we have a lot of snow melt going on at this moment. It’s going to increase over this coming weekend with the warm weather. Those temperatures are only in the 40s.”

Buehner said Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish are in the mid-50s while the Puget Sound is just barely above 50 degrees.

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鈥淚f you accidentally fall in, that’s when you go into that cold water shock,” Buehner said. “It’s like walking into a cold shower and you inhale and that’s when you’re taking in water. And that’s what can rapidly lead to drownings, just in those opening seconds that you are in that water.鈥

Ron Sendak, Boat Program Manager at said their mission is to reduce fatalities and incidents in waterways.

鈥淚t鈥檚 called cold water shock, and it is a real thing,” he said. “And that is exactly what happens when it’s 80 or 90 degrees outside and people are like, ‘Oh, look how refreshing this jump is going to be.’ And time and time again, we see folks jumping into that water. And unfortunately, they don’t come up.鈥

Sendak said you only need a half cup of water in your lungs to drown.

In 2022, there were 18 reportable fatalities in recreational boating safety vessels. 83% of those deaths involved not wearing life jackets. A majority of those recreational boating fatalities were on human-powered watercraft such as paddle craft canoes, kayaks, and stand-up paddleboards.

鈥淲e want folks to wear life jackets,” he said. “We want folks to wear leashes and life jackets when they’re on stand-up paddleboards. It’s state law. 12-and-under, you must wear a life jacket when you are on a vessel.鈥

But water safety isn鈥檛 just about the open water. It鈥檚 also about swimming pools. Chezik Tsunoda lost her son in a pool full of people.

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鈥淢y three-year-old son Yori at some point was found in the water facedown. We were all in the pool at the time. This is often what happens, you are not watching, but you think someone else is watching, and that person thinks that you’re watching,” Tsunoda said. “So that experience just motivated me to start an organization called and we really focus on childhood drowning. We focus on equitable access to swimming. Black and brown folks are four to five times more likely to drown. We really want access to swimming and want to make sure that parents are aware of the things that we need to do around water safety.鈥

Tsunoda helped pass Yori’s Law, where every May 15 in Washington is Water Safety Day. She also has a movie coming out called

鈥淚’m hoping that this just shifts and changes our perspective around what it means to be safe and watch our families around water,” Tsunoda said. “It’s not just for my organization, but it’s really about anyone. If you’re out on a boat with your friends, know where they are in the water. If you’re out with family, make sure someone knows you’re going swimming.鈥

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