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. 

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