Flurries have been spotted in the Chicagoland area raising the ire of its residents who are still grasping at the last wisps of the summer that was.  Suck it up, Chicagoans!  You’re embarrassing us all!  I’d swear I lived in Atlanta or something.

Many seem to think that it’s way too early for snow to be spotted in Chicago, but that’s not true at all.  The average first snowflakes in Chicago fall on Halloween so we’re a little earlier than average.  It’s not until mid-November that we normally get any measurable precipitation and it’s not until December 1st that we get our first inch of snow.

So this is a perfectly normal occurrence in what has so far been a perfectly normal fall in Chicago.  Unlike South Dakota which had a freak blizzard at the beginning of the month which may have killed over 100,000 cattle and dropped over 19 inches of snow in the area.  The cattle were without their winter coats and inches of rain has already fallen on them before the temperatures dropped and the snow began.  Hypothermia because of the 70 MPH winds and suffocation from getting caught in snow drifts were the two leading causes of death for the cattle.