University of South Florida experts in the thick, floating seaweed now believe this year's peak has passed.
That deflates concerns that this summer’s sargassum inundation would be worse than last year’s record-setting, beach-spoiling season.
Brian Barnes, lead scientist of USF’s Sargassum Watch System, said 2026 is now expected to land second all-time for the tonnage of sargassum washing onto beaches daily.
Sargassum amounts decrease in July
“Consistent with most previous years, total sargassum amount in every region started to decrease in July while the distribution patterns remained stable. This is a good sign,” Barnes said. “However, total amount in the Gulf still remained at a record high for July, and in other regions was only second to the historical record in 2025, meaning that coastal inundation and beaching events in most regions continued in July — including the southeast coast of Florida and around the Caribbean and Lesser Antilles Islands.”
In recent summers, more than 70,000 tons of sargassum per day reached coastlines throughout the tropical regions of the North Atlantic, with the Caribbean among the hardest-hit areas, according to a 2025 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Scientific Reports.
Smaller amounts have fouled beaches in the greater Miami area southward into the Florida Keys.
Still a headache
Barnes said the amount of sargassum in most regions will decrease in coming months, but the dense seaweed will continue to cause headaches for resort owners, government officials, and beachtown mayors by washing up on beaches.
In the Gulf, Texas is far more likely than Southwest Florida to find sargassum washing up on its beaches. That’s because the Loop Current whisks the seaweed from north to south far from shore.
Will that change? Marine scientists have recently discovered some of the record 2025 bloom survived in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf long enough to help produce more sargassum there in 2026.
Those remnants acted like seed stock, growing and breaking into new living pieces.
That means the region may not always have to wait for a new crop to cross the Atlantic Ocean from the Sargasso Sea.
If the pattern continues, the sargassum season could begin earlier, warning times could shrink, and one exceptionally bad year could help produce the next.
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by VoLo Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
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