To turn up the heat, DC and New York residents watch porn during blizzard Jonas

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Thursday that winter storm Jonas, which battered the northeast last weekend, is the fourth most powerful snowstorm. It gave Jonas a rating of 7.66, using the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale that ranks winter storms based on inches of snowfall, population affected and geographic reach.

NOAA spokeswoman Maureen O’Leary explains that the blizzard covered 434,000 square miles in 26 states, dumped 20 inches of snow where there were 24 million residents and 30 inches in areas with 1.5 million people, and affected 102.8 million people in the US, reports The New York Post. Over 127,000 people in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama were in the dark due to power outages.

However, a significant number of people with power watched porn to turn up the heat. The New York Daily News reports that there was a correlation between the inches of snow with viewing X-rated video clips on PornHub. On Sunday, 17 inches of snow was recorded in Washington, DC, which was also the day that the porn Web site logged the biggest hike in porn traffic.

PornHub data say that there was a 21 percent boost in traffic on that date in DC, while the previous day, New York City posted a 9 percent growth. The next day, because residents were still trapped inside their homes, PornHub logged its biggest jump in traffic in the US at 25 percent.

Other areas had shown similar spikes in PornHub traffic during winter storms such as the 18 percent hike in the northeast when winter storm Juno struck in 2015 and a 35 percent boost in Boston. But it is not just winter storms that cause surges in PornHub viewing, loss in the Super Bowl has similar effect such as the 11 percent hike noticed in 2014 after the Denver Broncos lost the game. The increase was observed even while the game was still ongoing.

But at least those folks who watched porn were in the safety of their own homes. In the case of Clifford Ray Jones of Detroit, he died in a car crash on early Sunday. According to Michigan State Police, Jones was partially ejected through the sunroof of the 1996 Toyota because he was distracted watching porn on his smartphone and pleasuring himself while driving. Jones was found naked from the waist down, reports Fox.