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Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region’s prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots.

Researchers have been working to track and study floating sargassum, a prolific seaweed swamping Caribbean and West African shorelines, and causing environmental and economic harm.

As the sargassum piles up on beaches, it makes it hard for mother sea turtles to lay eggs, and nearly impossible for baby turtles to return to the sea.

“I’m so happy, because they said we were going to have the sargassum,” Adriana Campuzano said of predictions earlier this year, as she was gathering her stuff to leave before the looming thunderstorm.

For months, Florida’s usually picturesque coast was plagued by a rotting tangle of seaweed, known as sargassum.