July 12, 2023 — Florida vacations are back on, sans stinky seaweed.
The record-breaking mass of stinky seaweed that began appearing on Florida’s iconic beaches this spring, known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Seaweed Belt, shrunk in the Gulf of Mexico by 75% last month, according to scientists from the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab.
The seaweed, which smells like rotten eggs and emits toxic gases when it comes ashore, proved a nuisance for Florida beachgoers in the spring – which is also the start of the Sunshine State’s tourist season. In April, the seaweed set a record, with scientists identifying 3 million tons of sargassum in the Caribbean Sea.