Like a disappointing Tinder match, the Blizzard of 2015 promised to deliver big inches but when it came time for the big event, the whole affair proved to be rather anticlimactic. Throughout New England, huge snowfall predictions were being made: Boston was expecting somewhere in the ballpark of 2 to 3 feet of snow, New York 1.5 to 2 feet, and Philadelphia more than a foot. A state of emergency was officially declared in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, southern New York and Rhode Island and a disaster emergency proclamation was signed in Pennsylvania. Schools, government services and public transit were shut down and curfews were put into effect. In other words, Mother Nature was set to bukkake the northeast.
Though Juno proved to be a bit of a bust, folks across the upper eastern seaboard stocked up on non perishables and holed up, prepared for the worst. Let’s take a look at how this historical weather event affected Pornhub traffic. Across the board, it seems as though when those extra inches failed to add up, people turned to Pornhub for some satisfaction. There were some definite increases in traffic in all states affected by the storm, averaging around 20% overall, with the most noticeable statewide spike occurring in New Jersey at 26%.
Now for a look at traffic levels on the metropolitan level. Though the streets of New York City were devoid of much traffic during the not so great Blizzard of 2015 thanks to the curfew implemented by mayor de Blasio before the storm hit, Pornhub traffic was up by a respectable 21% in the Big Apple. While meteorologists are apologizing for their faulty near 36 inch prediction in Boston, they did come pretty close to the related traffic increase in Beantown, at 35%. With their mere 4 inch accumulation in Trenton, a notable 12% increase in traffic was nonetheless observed in this New Jersey city.
When we look at traffic changes by device, mobile traffic appears to have increased more than double what desktop traffic did on the 27th in comparison to device proportions on an average Tuesday. With the threat of power outages looming, folks were likely logging on to Pornhub using their mobile devices over desktop. The near triple increases in traffic originating from this type of device over desktop in New Hampshire and over double in Maine allude to people preparing for the worst in the event that the power should fail.
If we take a look at hourly traffic changes, we see some interesting trends throughout the states and cities. With many people expecting to stay home the next day, they were up later than usual logging extra hours on Pornhub. Peak Pornhub hours in the US are generally from 10pm to midnight, but on January 27th traffic increased more from 2am to 4am (Eastern Standard Time). In most places, the next largest increase in traffic happened between 10am and 2pm where we saw a 73% increase in Boston traffic, and 50% across the state of New Jersey.
Much like during the Deep Freeze of 2014, when the weather gets nasty outside, people flock to get nasty on Pornhub. Will future weather events affect traffic in the same way? Stay tuned to Pornhub Insights to find out!
Dirty Jerseyyyyyyyy 🙂 🙂 I was totally on, but I was working, so it kind of counts as being productive. That’s how I’m justifying it anyway. #DirtyJerzForLife