Is this what late-stage capitalism looks like? Our ancestors once feared sub-zero temperatures because they could lead to frostbite and death, but today, a Polar Vortex like the one that swept across the American Midwest last week leads to… a huge boost in Pornhub viewership!

Ever tuned in to pressing issues, Newsweek asked Pornhub to share its findings about Midwesterners’ pervy viewing habits during the Polar Vortex.

This year’s first Polar Vortex hit on January 30th and 31st, plunging temperatures in the Midwest to record lows. But that same frigid chill, which kept people at home as businesses closed across the region, also set record high numbers of horny Midwesterners tuning in the world’s biggest free, streaming porn website. Minnesota alone saw a whopping 22% increase during the two-day Polar Vortex, Pornhub reported. Over the same period, Wisconsin’s traffic was up 12% above average, and Illinois and Indiana both experienced a 9% rise.

Similar to noted changes in traffic to the site during the recent government shutdown and other weather-related phenomena in the past, Pornhub reported that late-night and mid-afternoon porn viewing skyrocketed during the arctic temperatures, since folks were staying up later and had more… er… time… on their hands at midday.

These trends held true for all Midwestern states, with the notable exception of Michigan, where traffic to Pornhub dropped to 2% below average during the Vortex. Pornhub speculated that this may have been due to a natural gas shortage in the state that led Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to request that during the vortex, Michiganders bundle up and set their thermostats to a mere 65 degrees until the Vortex passed.

“Perhaps,” speculated Pornhub’s data specialists, “the temperatures inside were too low for people to risk exposing their extremities unnecessarily.”

Winter weather photo by Alexander Kalina