I, for one, am going to the beach this weekend. So expect it to show up in, as officials say, “low-to-medium background concentrations offshore Lee County,” or wherever. Red tide organisms are endemic in the world’s oceans, which means it’s part of seawater. At that point, the back-to-back-to-back red tide blooms we’ve been living with will be no more. However, at some point the excess nutrients flushed in the coastal waters will be used up, diluted, and washed away. So enjoy it now.įWC A week ago red tide was not found in any water quality testing south of Tampa Bay While hurricanes do not cause red tide, there is scientific evidence that those nutrients a storm washes into the ocean can make blooms last longer than if the food wasn’t available, but so little about red tide is 100-percent understood that I say let’s be thankful for this week. Since Hurricane Ian blew through in September and washed a whole bunch of nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen from the land into the water, we here in Southwest Florida have been dealing with one red tide after another.ĭo the clear results of water quality testing by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission mean red tide will not return? No.īut there is no reason to believe red tide blooms will return, either. If you don’t recognize it, that’s understandable, because it has been since last year that Southwest Florida wasn’t lit up like those red-yellow-green-“go” light stands at the start line of a drag-racing strip. In nearly real time it shows where testing for the red tide organism is positive. The red time blooms plaguing Southwest Florida’s beaches for five months are drifting away to the north. This story was originally published January 10, 2023, 7:00 AM.Hold onto your shorts, because I’ve got good news. University of South Florida’s Red Tide Prediction and Tracking center provides short term forecasts of red tide’s movement around Tampa Bay and the west coast of Florida. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issues weekly red tide reports with conditions by county and maintains a map of red tide sampling around the state. Mote Marine Laboratory’s Beach Conditions Report is updated frequently by lifeguards and includes reports of red tide conditions, including respiratory irritation and dead fish, as well as other hazards on local beaches. NOAA’s Red Tide Respiratory Forecast is updated several times a day with the level of red tide risk at specific beaches along the Gulf Coast, from Pinellas County through Collier County. Several online resources make it easy to check whether a particular county, beach or coastline in Southwest Florida are currently affected by a red tide bloom.
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