Sargassum in Atlantic Ocean Concern

From CNN


A giant blob of seaweed twice the width of the continental United States is headed for the shores of Florida and other coastlines throughout the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to dump smelly and possibly harmful piles across beaches and dampening tourism season.
Sargassum — the specific variety of seaweed — has long formed large blooms in the Atlantic Ocean, and scientists have been tracking massive accumulations since 2011. But this year’s bloom could be the largest ever, collectively spanning more than 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers) from the shores of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.
This year’s sargassum bloom began forming early and doubled in size between December and January, said Dr. Brian Lapointe, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The mass “was larger in January than it has ever been since this new region of sargassum growth began in 2011,” he told CNN International’s Rosemary Church.

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Workers remove sargassum from a beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, in June.
Orlando Barria/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Traveling west, the blob will push through the Caribbean and up into the Gulf of Mexico during the summer. The seaweed is expected to show up on beaches in Florida around July, Lapointe said.
 
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top photo NOAA's previous report and bottom the most recent. not much difference. if you enlarge image you can see shapes of anguilla, saint-martin, and saint-barth in the orange and blue blob under the anguilla label.
 
Cassidain, that is a great link. For fun, here is this year's image compared to last years at this same time.

Last year's end of March:
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This year's end of March:

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Not sure how Anguilla could be in the medium range, Saba getting hammered, but St Barth has the all clear....
 
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