World’s biggest seaweed patch is headed towards tourist beaches. What vacationers need to know

The world’s largest seaweed mass is entering the Gulf of Mexico and expected to float toward beaches along Florida and the Gulf as tourist season starts.

Tracts of sodden seaweed emitting a foul smell have already begun washing up like a bad omen on southern Florida beaches.

In Mexico’s Riviera Maya, hundreds of tons of the algae has piled up along the beaches as the mass moves westward between the Yucatan and Cuba.

The annual Atlantic sargassum belt grew to previously unseen proportions this year, spanning 5,500 miles, twice the width of the United States, and weighing nearly 13 tons.

“The large quantities already in the (Caribbean Sea and to the east) will continue to accumulate and migrate westward, creating beaching hazards along the way,” NASA and University of South Florida Optical Oceanography Lab projected.