Winter storm claims at least 34 lives across U.S.

A winter storm sweeping across the United States has killed at least 34 people, with millions taking shelter amid a deep freeze Sunday.

Officials expect the snow to claim even more lives. Reports say residents are trapped inside by heaping snow drifts and power is knocked out to tens of thousands of residences and businesses.

With the storm stretching from the Great Lakes near the Canadian border to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico, about 60 per cent of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.

Storm-related deaths continue to be reported across the U.S., with at least 10 people killed in Ohio.

Four of those people died in an Ohio Turnpike pileup on Friday which involved roughly 50 vehicles.

Maybe the worst accident / car pileup I’ve ever seen on the Ohio Turnpike pic.twitter.com/mGby7wRlaJ

— ✨ mike ✨ (@mikewaldron115) December 23, 2022

The road faced closures in both directions after the massive pileup blocked traffic.

Authorities say the death toll has risen to 27 in western New York alone.

Executive for Erie County, Mark Poloncarz said 10 people died there during the storm, including six in Buffalo.

“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” said Poloncarz. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than two days.”

American residents are facing a wide variety of causes leading to their death.

A man was overcome by carbon monoxide after heavy snow blocked his furnace, two people died in suburban Cheektowaga, N.Y. after emergency crews were unable to reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, and six motorists were killed in separate crashes in Missouri and Kansas.

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In Wisconsin, a woman died after falling through river ice, a Vermont woman died after being struck by a falling branch, while an apparently homeless man was found dead in Colorado, succumb to the cold.

The National Weather Service said temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.

A quick drop in atmospheric pressure during a strong storm, called a bomb cyclone, hit near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled ahead of Christmas as well.

Some 1,707 domestic and international flights in the U.S. were cancelled on Sunday as of about 2 p.m., according to the tracking site FlightAware.