Winter Storm Fern claims life of man found with snow shovel in his hand with at least 34 dead as record lows are set to hit in just DAYS

A massive winter storm that inundated large swaths of the United States over the weekend has now resulted in more than 30 deaths across the country, including one man who was found dead with a shovel still in his hand.

The Verona Police Department in New Jersey announced Monday that an unidentified 67 year old man has died, after he was found unresponsive with a snow shovel in his hand. 

Fatalities from Winter Storm Fern have also been reported in states spanning from Texas all the way to Massachusetts.

The treacherous weather began pounding parts of the South and the Plains on Friday, bringing ice, freezing rain and snow, before the storm spread eastward through Sunday night.

More than 525,000 people across the country were still without power as day broke on Tuesday in the east, with more than 100,000 customers out in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, each, according to PowerOutage.us.

They now face brutal cold temperatures with record lows forthcoming in several southern states.

That bitter cold is now expected to last throughout the week before another winter storm could hit the east coast. 

‘Dangerous wind chills as low as -50°F will persist, and much below-normal temperatures may continue into early February,’ the National Weather Service wrote on X.

‘Potential is increasing for another significant winter storm to impact the eastern United States this coming weekend.’

The warning comes as states across the country are already struggling to shovel out.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, officials were forced on Monday to declare a state of emergency after 37 of its snowplows broke overnight, representing a large swath of the city’s 95-snowplow fleet. 

The heavy snow fall has made shoveling conditions difficult, resulting in some of the fatalities across the country, while others died of hypothermia and in sledding-related accidents.

In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office said at least eight people were found dead outside as temperatures plunged between Saturday and Monday morning, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.

In Emporia, Kansas, police searching with bloodhounds found Rebecca Rauber, a 28-year-old teacher, dead and covered in snow. Police said she had was last seen leaving a bar without her coat and phone.

Police said snowplows backed into two people who died in Norwood, Massachusetts, and Dayton, Ohio. And authorities said two teenagers, one in Arkansas and another in Texas, were killed in sledding accidents.

The body of a missing University of Michigan student, identified as 19-year-old Lucas Mattson, was also recovered on Saturday.

He was last seen at around 1am local time on Friday walking alone ‘without a coat,’ , the Ann Arbor Police Department announced.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Timothy Steele, 66, died when an ice-laden tree limb fell through the roof of his mobile home, and in Louisiana 86-year-old Alvin Mayweather was found dead in his home along with at least one of his pets. 

The father-of-two died of carbon monoxide poisoning, with authorities saying it is likely he kept his generator too close to his home, KSLA reports. 

Six others were killed when a private jet crashed at an airport in Maine on Sunday, taking the lives of Tara Arnold, 46; pilot Jacob Hosmer, 47, and event planner Shawna Collins.

In total, authorities in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and South Carolina have since reported one weather-related death each, and two fatalities were reported in each of Arkansas, Massachusetts and Mississippi.

Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana reported three deaths each, and in Tennessee four people died as a result of the storm, while nine died in the state of New York.

And while states of emergency have come to an end in many states, the National Weather Service warns that a stretch of the US from Texas to New York will experience bone-chilling temperatures into Tuesday.

Areas as far south as the Florida panhandle and southern Georgia will see morning wild chills reach the teens and single digits, with prolonged exposure to this cold potentially causing hypothermia and frostbite to exposed skin within minutes.

States throughout the Gulf, including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, will see wild chills drop to 10 degrees below zero, cold enough to cause frostbite in just 30 minutes.

In the Midwest, parts of Ohio, Nebraska, and Minnesota are expected to experience wind chills hit between 30 and 45 degrees below zero, which would potentially make stepping outside deadly in less than 20 minutes.

By Thursday, a high-altitude disturbance is expected to move in from Canada, creating a strong surface low-pressure system that may bring even more snow to the east coast by the weekend, meteorologists say.

WSVN Meteorologist Dylan Federico also wrote on X, ‘The cold coming this weekend is the real deal! The EURO is one of the coldest model runs I’ve ever seen, with below-zero wind chills down to the Gulf Coast on Saturday morning!’

The persistent power outages are only set to make conditions worse.

‘We’re about to freeze to death,’ Donnie Albritton, who has been without power in Tennessee since Saturday, told WKRN.

‘There is no way to get out and no end in sight,’ he lamented. ‘They’re saying there are so many without power.’

Those seeking to get out of the area may also face problems, as more than 7,586 flights were delayed across the country on Monday with nearly 6,200 more flights canceled, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

As day broke on the east coast, more than 1,000 flights in the United States were already canceled on Tuesday.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy now says air travel is only expected to return to normal by Wednesday.