First, I believe some ranch women have developed a little jacket for baby calves, even ear protectors! However, due to the facts way the animals are structured, elimination can be a problem, with any blanket type thing getting dirty awfully fast. That would likely cause illness if not changed daily. The laundry COULD be a problem! Fact is, cattle are designed to withstand the elements very well except in special circumstances such as newborns. As others mentioned, full stomach, a little shelter from the wind, and cattle are very durable.
If it was the Atlas storm in SD which turned you to this idea, that was a VERY unusual storm in that October is quite early for a severe blizzard. And the weather had been unusually warm for October, at 70 to 80 degrees as the rain started. Then, it rained several inches (three to four on our ranch) before the snow started. Then it was a wind driven mix of rain and snow, later turning to snow. Even when cattle were in good shelter from the wind, the very fine snow drifted into the protected areas, filling the air, AND the lungs of the cattle. The difficulty of just breathing, the stress of the extreme cold which came soon after the snow started, with temperatures dropping by 70 to 100 degrees from what it had been just two or three days earlier. That stressed the hearts of the cattle, and caused something similar to congestive heart failure in humans. Some of them moved with the wind, falling into dams, creeks, and ditches full of water and drowned. Some literally drowned from the moisture they inhaled.
That was a very rare type of storm, with some older folks having never seen one like it. And we certainly hope we never do again!
We only lost three head in that storm, while others whose cattle were in even better locations, terrain and windbreaks, lost many. Just depended on the way they moved with the storm. There have been longer lasting, blizzards when we did lose cattle on a few occasions over the 125 years our family has raised cattle in SD. It always hurts, and has sometimes taken us years to recover from. Keeping them in a barn isn't feasible, and for some, even sheds or good windbreaks was no guarantee of ending up with live cattle. The real miracle of that storm was that no one died while out trying to save their cattle. It has happened in the past, and it is really hard to stay in the house instead of risking ones' life trying to save the cattle.
Really, the best thing to do to protect cattle from storms is to have them in good condition, and feed them as the storm is starting.
mrj