# seawood forecast for this year?



## Dawn Patrol (Jun 7, 2014)

Does anybody know what the seaweed forecast is for the year? The TAMU website that many of us used last year does not have any current information on it.

My family and I were in Cozumel last week, and there were very large mats of sargassum in the water. My son and I went fishing in a boat off of the southwest part of the island, and our lines kept getting bogged down by it.

We also saw recent tripadvisor pics for Playa del Carmen, and it looked like they were already well on their way to a really bad seaweed year like we had last year around here.

I really hope we don't have another year like last year in store for us.


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## dbarham (Aug 13, 2005)

Man last yr was epic


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## Shark_Reeler (Aug 16, 2014)

Shhhh! Don't let the seawood know we're here. :ac550:


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## fultonswimmer (Jul 3, 2008)

Its coming! Get out there while you can....


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## scrambler (May 28, 2004)

I heard that after last year's record landfall, the sargassum weed was taking a year off


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## willygee (Jun 21, 2013)

i think what contributed was the late winter last year. seems like this yr is a more normal yr so let's hope it isnt too bad. nasty, dirty stuff last yr but maybe it helped the trout population?


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## bingorocks (Oct 30, 2014)

WTH is seawood?


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## Zoo (Mar 25, 2014)

I also heard it was due to late winter last year. But see this image from global average temperature deviation from mean in the month of March 2014. It shows below average temps in the northern Gulf, where the weed landed in May 2014. but above average temps in the Sargasso Sea, where the weed grows. The graphics from winter/spring 2014 show a very similar pattern.










Now see the February 2015 graph. Essentially the same.










I don't know if there is any applicable information to be pulled from this because I'm not entirely sure what causes large weed seasons. I think a contributer to the length of the season we had was the lack of large storms in the gulf. This allowed the rafts to sit in the warm nutritious waters of the middle gulf and grow at a rate that was near to the rate that pieces were pulled off so there.


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## scrambler (May 28, 2004)

Zoo said:


> I also heard it was due to late winter last year. But see this image from global average temperature deviation from mean in the month of March 2014. It shows below average temps in the northern Gulf, where the weed landed in May 2014. but above average temps in the Sargasso Sea, where the weed grows. The graphics from winter/spring 2014 show a very similar pattern.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Last years huge amount of sargassum was due more to the late cold fronts than water temps. Sargassum grows exponentially when it gets closer to the coast due to more nutrients in the water. Last year it would get close to the coast then we would have a strong north wind that would blow it back out. This repeated itself over and over while the sargassum continued to grow.


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## willygee (Jun 21, 2013)

scrambler said:


> Last years huge amount of sargassum was due more to the late cold fronts than water temps. Sargassum grows exponentially when it gets closer to the coast due to more nutrients in the water. Last year it would get close to the coast then we would have a strong north wind that would blow it back out. This repeated itself over and over while the sargassum continued to grow.


yup what scrambler said...


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