This stinks!!!!!

 An enormous stretch of seaweed measuring 5,000 miles wide is set to bring stench, pests, and bacteria to the beaches of Florida and Mexico!

The "Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt" is a massive bloom of brown algae that stretches from the coast of West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. (It's like the world has a belt!)

It is the largest seaweed bloom in the world — weighing approximately 20 million tons — and is visible from outer space.

This year's bloom is the biggest on record for the month of March, and it's expected to grow from here, peaking in June or July. Scientists are increasingly concerned about the impacts of the algae.

It's important to note that seaweed is usually fairly innocuous and actually has benefits like providing habitats for fish and absorbing carbon dioxide. But that's when it's out in the open ocean.

Sargassum, like the bloom spanning about twice the width of the US right now, could wreak havoc on beaches as ocean currents push the brown algae toward land.

Because once the seaweed reaches the shore, "the [blooms] degrade water quality, they smell bad, they attract insects and bacteria, they chase away tourists. 

It's a bad impact on the economy," Chuanmin Hu, professor of oceanography at the University of Miami, said to us!