Red Tide Status Update for November 15, 2019

Current Conditions
A bloom of the red tide organism, Karenia brevis, persists in Southwest Florida. Additional details are provided below.

• In Southwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at background to very low concentrations in Pinellas County, background concentrations in Manatee County, background to high concentrations in Sarasota County, very low to high concentrations in and/or offshore of Charlotte County, background to high concentrations in and/or offshore of Lee County, and very low to high concentrations in and/or offshore of Collier County. Bloom concentrations (>100,000 K. brevis cells per liter) persist in Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties. These included coastal sites in Sarasota County, coastal, inlet, and estuarine sites in Charlotte and Lee Counties, as well as samples collected as far as 7-30 miles offshore of Lee and Collier counties. High concentrations (>1 million cells per liter) were observed in 30 samples from these counties.
• In Northwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at background concentrations in one sample collected from Escambia County.
• Along the Florida East Coast over the past week, K. brevis was not observed.

In Southwest Florida over the past week, fish kill reports were received for Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties (please see https://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/health/fish-kills-hotline).

Respiratory irritation was reported over the past week in Southwest Florida in Sarasota, Lee and Collier counties.

Forecasts by the USF-FWC Collaboration for Prediction of Red Tides for Pinellas to northern Monroe counties predict net southern movement of surface and subsurface waters in most areas over the next four days.

A midweek status update will be available on Wednesday, November 20^th and the next complete status report will be issued on Friday, November 22^nd. Please check our daily sampling map, which can be accessed via the online status report on our Red Tide Current Status page.

This information, including maps and reports with additional details, is also available on the FWRI Red Tide website. The website also provides links to additional information related to the topic of Florida red tide including satellite imagery, experimental red tide forecasts, shellfish harvesting areas, the FWC Fish Kill Hotline, the Florida Poison Information Center (to report human health effects related to exposure to red tide), and other wildlife related hotlines.

To learn more about various organisms that have been known to cause algal blooms in Florida waters, see the FWRI Red Tide Flickr page. Archived status maps can also be found on Flickr.    

The FWRI HAB group in conjunction with Mote Marine Laboratory now have a facebook page.  Please like our page and learn interesting facts concerning red tide and other harmful algal blooms in Florida.