Snow in Chicago this close to May is unusual, but we're getting numb to abnormal weather

We're getting used to weird weather.
 By 
Sasha Lekach
 on 
Snow in Chicago this close to May is unusual, but we're getting numb to abnormal weather
It snowed earlier in April in Chicago and again the last weekend before May. Credit: Xinhua/ via Getty Images

Yes, it is snowing in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest.

Yes, it is April 27 -- a mere four days until May.

Yes, people are heading to Twitter and social media to freak out.

And finally, yes, we'll forget our shock as soon as the next extreme weather event happens.

That's what a study from earlier in 2019 conducted by the UC Davis environmental science and policy researcher Frances Moore found after examining 2 billion tweets over a two-and-half year period. It found that we tweet about unusual weather because it stands out, but as it becomes more normal, we accept it as how it is and post about it less. In this way we slowly acclimate to extreme weather from climate change, the study asserts.

So Saturday's late-April snowstorm in Chicago stands out now, but in the long-run it'll blend into the February heatwaves, torrential flooding, and other once-remarkable-but-now-not-so-notable weather we experience as the climate changes.

In this particular situation, as more snow and cold temperatures strike later into spring, we're more likely to not notice the strangeness and bizarre patterns -- and eventually accept May snowfall as a normal trend, even if it's not.

And while it seems outrageous for this much snow to accumulate in the middle of spring, it has happened in the past, and even later into the season.

April showers? More like April snow. Get used to it.

Mashable Image
Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.

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