What if you saw this headline: New Study: Fewer Drowning Deaths in Death Valley than Lake Michigan?

Well, not quite so bad, but it must be a slow news day when the paper reports the following:

A relatively mild winter may have contributed to the recent season’s [snowmobile] safety record.

“There is a direct relationship between snowmobile activity and the amount of snow on the ground,” association spokesman Gary Mitchell said in a statement.

So, less snow = less snowmobiling = fewer snowmobiling deaths. Are you kidding me?

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life. This year, I went up north snowboarding over NYE weekend and for the first time since I started skiing 16 years ago, there was no snow on the side of the roads. No snowbanks, no drifts, not even that melty, gross, brownish sludge that crumbles off the back of your wheel-wells when it warms up. On President’s Day in February, the story was mostly the same – sure, it had been colder, the slopes were in better condition, but it hadn’t snowed enough for there to be really any substantial amount of accumulation. In early March, when accumulation is often at its maximum – there might’ve been a foot or so on the ground in some places. Snowmobilers are usually everywhere up there in the winter. I might’ve seen five or six of them this year – and they weren’t even active, they were parked at the bar.

How is this a news story?