People can’t stop searching for the ‘East Coast blizzard’ online — and other stats

There’s a massive blizzard affecting 75 million people across East Coast this weekend, just in case you didn’t hear.

With warnings like “a direct hit” and “paralyzing” snowfalls expecting to hit the three-foot mark in Washington D.C., nearly 20 inches in Philadelphia and up to 15 inches in New York City, the Internet is understandably losing its mind over the historic blizzard.

Here’s what people are searching for and talking about online:

“East Coast blizzard.” According to search analytics firm iQuanti, that is the most searched-for phrase relating to the winter storm online, followed by “blizzard” and “NYC blizzard.” The most searches are coming from Maryland and District of Columbia, where the storm will hit the hardest.

124,000. Over the past two days, that’s how many winter storm-related tweets there have been been, according to Amobee Brand Intelligence. The firm notes that 36 percent of engagement used Jonas, the unofficial name given by The Weather Channel for the storm, indicating that “adaptation of the name for the storm has been somewhat limited.”

122 percent. Amusingly, people mentioned The Jonas Brothers, a once-beloved teen band, a lot more, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed on the Internet:

jonas meme

75 million. That’s how many page views Weather.com garnered yesterday — an increase of 88 percent above average. A rep for the site said video views also were 300 percent above average and Weather.com recorded 38 million unique visitors yesterday.

20 to 30 percent. Instacart told Digiday that’s how much orders on the on-demand grocery shopping app increases when people don’t want to leave their home during major weather events.

2.8 to 3.5 times. Uber always attracts controversy for its surge pricing during severe weather events, so the ride hailing service is capping surge pricing, at least in New York. UberX will hit 3.8 times the normal price and UberBLACK will increase to 2.8 times, The Verge writes.

https://digiday.com/?p=157557

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