In its pelagic sargassum grounding monitoring and forecasting bulletin for the northern islands communicated this Monday, August 22, 2022, Météo France maintains the average risk of grounding for the territory of Saint-Martin while the risk is high for Saint-Martin. -Barthelemy.
The detections are still numerous east of the Caribbean arc, and more precisely in the 200 km to the east on the Atlantic. The currents are still favorable to progress towards the West Indies. For the northern islands, arrivals of sargassum for the two territories are expected. Barring cyclonic influence, the first waves of these algae will hit Saint-Martin in the middle of this week. The Dutch side will also be affected by the phenomenon. As far as Saint-Barthélemy is concerned, other more or less long rafts and filaments are in transit to the west.
Over the next two weeks, the risk remains very present in the French West Indies and we must still count on regular groundings on the exposed beaches. Indeed, the rafts come mostly from the South-South-East from Barbados and its surroundings. On Tuesday, Max Mathiasin, MP for Guadeloupe, an island particularly affected by the phenomenon, questioned the Minister Delegate for Overseas Territories on "the financial consequences for self-employed workers of the invasion of Sargassum in Guadeloupe" and asked him to carry out an assessment on the said financial consequences. No response has yet been provided.
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To better understand how the Météo France service proceeds to establish its forecasts and its estimate of the risk of grounding, the detection and localization of Sargassum rafts around the Caribbean arc are carried out by medium and high resolution remote sensing after acquisition and specific post-processing of data from on-board optical sensors using several satellites: MODIS (Aqua and Terra satellites), at 1km resolution; OLCI (Sentinel 3A/3B satellites) at 300m resolution and MSI (Sentinel 2A/2B satellites) at 10-30m resolution. The collection of satellite data and their analysis is carried out by Météo France. This model simulates the movement of the identified slicks by taking into account the combined effect of surface wind friction on the Sargassum and the evolution of their movement by sea currents. The risk of seaweed stranding is estimated, on a low to very high scale, from the drift forecast and the number of sargassum beds reaching the identified coastal surveillance zone. Unfortunately, the current forecast chain does not make it possible to accurately estimate the quantity of seaweed likely to run aground, even if the forecasts remain relevant. _VX
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