Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.Without the images, it might be hard to wrap your mind around the amount of snow blanketing the island of Hokkaido in northern Japan.

You've heard of lake-effect snow in the Great Lakes. Check out what a larger sea and bitter cold air helped to generate in parts of Japan.

The cold air mass is expected to fluctuate in intensity and persist until the weekend, with heavy snow forecast for Hokkaido, Tohoku and Hokuriku later this week.