What is up with the ocean in Fort Lauderdale (Miami: 2013, move to)

[tom77falcons]

I swear the ocean water there used to be blue in color and clear. I am here now and the water at Dania Beach yesterday was terrible. The water was brown and cloudy for about 30 feet out from rotting seaweed, which also covered the beach, and then only a cloudy green past that. It just ain't what I remember.



I also viewed a beach cam from South Beach and same thing there. Terrible. Tourism is gonna take a hit for sure as no one seems to even be going in the water.



Anyone from the area know what is going on? And will it be like this all summer?

[Libertad06]

Seems to be an issue up the coast. Brevard beaches absolutely reak from all the seaweed on them.

[ruski]

It was the same thing last summer.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018...ibbean-islands

Before 2011, open-ocean Sargassum was mostly found in the Sargasso Sea, a patch of the North Atlantic enclosed by ocean currents that serves as a spawning ground for eels. So when Sargassum first hit the Caribbean, scientists assumed that it had drifted south from the Sargasso Sea. But satellite imagery and data on ocean currents told a different story.

Jim Gower, a remote-sensing expert with Fisheries and Oceans Canada who is based in Sidney, British Columbia, and his colleagues looked for spots on the ocean’s surface that reflected unusual amounts of near-infrared light, a part of the spectrum that plants don’t harvest. Data from May 2011 showed a huge patch of floating plants, presumably Sargassum, off the coast of Brazil—far to the south of its normal habitat. By September, it stretched from the Caribbean all the way to the coast of Africa, the team reported in 2013.

[ruski]

And this is what the ocean looked like just a month ago.

[tom77falcons]

Originally Posted by ruski

And this is what the ocean looked like just a month ago.

Where? Not in Fort Lauderdale it didn’t. More a murky green.

[tom77falcons]

Originally Posted by ruski

And this is what the ocean looked like just a month ago.

I was in Lauderdale by the sea on April 2018, Jan 2019, March 2019 and just now. Has never looked like that on those visits. The water in Fort Lauderdale will never again look like it did in 1988. Which was crystal clear turquoise.

[ruski]

Originally Posted by tom77falcons

Where? Not in Fort Lauderdale it didn’t. More a murky green.

I took that picture myself, on April 21 2019, in Sunny Isles.

Fort Lauderdale is not quite as turquoise, but still very nice.

Were you in Fort Lauderdale in April 2019?

[tom77falcons]

Originally Posted by ruski

I took that picture myself, on April 21 2019, in Sunny Isles.

Fort Lauderdale is not quite as turquoise, but still very nice.

Were you in Fort Lauderdale in April 2019?

No, not April of this year but last year.



Do you have any recent pics of fort lauderdale or Dania when it was nice?


I remember fort lauderdale looking like your pic in the way past. Why isn't it as turquoise as Sunny Isles? I thought from Palm Beach to Miami was all pretty much the same color and clarity?

[tom77falcons]

Apparently, welcome to the new normal in Southeast Florida.


Now it is showing up in winter, not just summer according to the article it first showed up in March.





https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/so...l3a-story.html

[ruski]

Originally Posted by tom77falcons

No, not April of this year but last year.



Do you have any recent pics of fort lauderdale or Dania when it was nice?


I remember fort lauderdale looking like your pic in the way past. Why isn't it as turquoise as Sunny Isles? I thought from Palm Beach to Miami was all pretty much the same color and clarity?

I have noticed (over the years) that Fort Lauderdale is no quite as turquoise as Sunny Isles, therefore I prefer SI.

I think it has to do with the color of the sand and the shallows. SI has very nice sand bars.

The closer you move to Palm Beach, the less turquoise the water becomes. I would say it is more saturated blue in Palm Beach.