Snowstorm Fern to Playa del Carmen's Sargassum

It was already quite chilly in the Hudson Valley in December.

Winter Storm Fern started on January 24, 2026.

This was our driveway in Grandpa Land after a day or two. New York is much more prepared for a big snow than say the Washington D.C area. In DC, two inches of snow literally can cause a thousand accidents out on the Beltway. It really doesn't snow that much so I get it that the area doesn't invest a whole lot in serious snow plows and the people aren't practiced in the art of driving in it.

As far as major cities go, I read that Syracuse NY ranks the highest with ~120 inches a year (contrasted with the ranger station on Mount Rainier clocking in at ~650 inches a year).

So these giant NY double super snow plows are right on top of things. For the first few days the plows throw the snow up on the sidewalks. The piles can reach ~15 feet high. As we walk everywhere, this causes something like back country urban cross country skiing scrambling to navigate these piles. Which when returning from the grocery store loaded down with supplies, makes things kind of suck.

What to do?

Wander to goddamn Playa del Carmen Mexico and ponder there is what to do.

Alas....

 

There is no perfect joy in this world. 

Christopher Columbus is credited with offering the first written account of encountering the Sargassum mats in the north Atlantic, then known as the Sargasso Sea. Columbus had entered an area known as the North Atlantic Gyre, a vast system of circulating ocean currents. The center of this gyre is a calm, windless area where vast quantities of the seaweed could accumulate. The mats were so thick that Columbus' men feared getting permanently stuck or hitting hidden reefs, when in reality they were thousands of miles from land.

At that time, the Sargasso Sea was known as the Golden Rainforest of the Ocean. It was teeming with life: Sargassum frogfish, crabs, shrimp, slugs and a universe of others. Sea turtles, eels, mahi-mahi, tuna and others took advantage of these critters and patrolled  it as their supermarket.

Sadly for us in 2026, the combination of global warming and the addition of agricultural fertilizer run off and sewage have acted like a Miracle Grow Greenhouse on steroids. It is now called the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB) and it stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. It no longer stays isolated in the gyre. Ocean currents now push the Sargassum up onto the beaches of Florida and the Caribbean. January 2026 recorded levels 75% higher than historical measurements. 1.7 million tons in just four weeks and we are not even in summer yet.

When you have absolutely nothing else to do after a few drinks and it is 11:00 PM, here is a video on You Tube that captures the problem pretty well. I have seen this Rope Monster bro around town:

Is Playa Still Worth It?

Thanks for stopping by