An individual alga is a very small thing, but when it gets together with its buddies to form a massive algae bloom, those little organisms can become a big problem.

In research presented today at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Fall Meeting, Raphael Kudela of the University of California, Santa Cruz, announced that unusual conditions in the Pacific Ocean caused the surprising and incredibly toxic algal bloom along the West Coast this summer.

A strange area of warm water in the Pacific, known as the Blob, combined with the nutrient-rich waters on the Pacific coast created the perfect conditions for an algal bloom, a phenomenon seen more often in warmer waters, like the Persian Gulf or areas with a lot of nutrient runoff, such as Lake Erie. California does have algal blooms, but they are usually small and only occur for very short periods of time.