Extreme Temperatures
In Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, the snow accumulation during the 12-hour period through the early morning totalled 59 centimeters, a record high.
In Toyama, it reached 48 cm, the highest ever for the capital of the prefecture.
As of 9 a.m., the snow cover in Himi was six times more than usual. In the town of Asahi, it was 5.5 times more than in an average year.
A cyclone in the making passed through northern Japan, causing a winter pressure pattern around the country. A cold air mass, apparently the severest of the season, has made inroads into Japan.
Because of that, areas on the Sea of Japan side from Hokkaido to Kyushu, including flatlands, are expected to experience heavy snowfall until around Jan. 10.
The footage from Friday and Saturday shows rescue operations at Gora Otdelnaya ski resort whereby a 14-year-old boy was found alive and transported to a hospital.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the bodies of a 38-year-old woman, her 45-year-old husband and their one and half-year-old child were recovered.
The institution opened a criminal case in accordance with article 238 of the Criminal Code of Russia.
All rescue operations were completed on Saturday morning.
The cold weather has also brought thousands of motorists up into the mountains in search of rare wintry scenes.
They haven't been disappointed, but authorities are urging caution: people here are unused to driving in snow.
Parts of the world have been struck by extreme cold and snowfall.
Spain saw a record MINUS 34-point-1 degrees Celsius in the Catalan Pyrenees on Wednesday their lowest temperature in history.
The BBC reports snow and "nasty" wet and wintry conditions are expected in the country and neighboring Portugal,... over the next few days.
It says cold air originating in Russia is moving across Europe.
In China, temperatures plummeted to minus 19-point-six in Beijing,... the lowest since 1966.

A1M Motorway in County Durham is currently grid locked with traffic queuing for miles
An arctic blast from Greenland has left the country shivering as snow was dumped overnight and leaving treacherous conditions on the roads.
Temperatures fell to -15C in some spots, with yellow warnings issued for most of the country today by the Met Office.
It comes as another Beast from the East is set to arrive next week, with snowstorms and extreme temperatures expected to batter Britain in the cold blast.
On Thursday morning the mercury dropped to minus 19.6 degrees Celsius, breaking a previous cold weather record set in 1969.
The cold reading was the lowest since 1966, when temperatures in the city fell to minus 27.4 degrees Celsius.
Thousands took to social media to complain about the city's weather, with the hashtags "How cold is this winter?" and "Beijing's temperature reaches the lowest since 1966" both trending topics on Weibo and garnering a collective 240 million views.
"I heard the wind shouting at me: I want to kill you," wrote one.

A man removes snow from a car after the town received fresh snowfall, at Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti District.
The minimum and maximum temperatures rose marginally even as the sky remained heavily overcast and icy winds, accompanied by showers, blew across the region. The local Met office has warned of dense fog at isolated places in lower and middle hills in Una, Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Kangra and Mandi districts till January 9 and predicted rain and snow at isolated places in middle and high hills on January 8, followed by dry weather.
While extreme Arctic conditions have spared southern Canada of late, instead favoring to dip deep into Asia where Russia and even the subtropical regions of China and India continue to suffer record-breaking sub-zero temperatures, things have played out very differently in northern Canada.
Taking Kugaaruk as an example, on the morning of Tuesday, January 5 the small Nunavut hamlet located on the shore of Pelly Bay registered -47C (-52.6F) — this was a temperature among the area's coldest on record, and it also comfortably broke the previous Jan. 5 all-time low of -42C (-43.6F) set back in 1985 (solar minimum of cycle 21).
In addition to the official new record low, a staggering windchill or "feels-like" benchmark was also set.
When speaking to Yahoo News, Jaclyn Whittal, meteorologist at the Weather Network, pointed out that Kugaaruk's windchill was over -60C (-76F) early Tuesday morning, a number she said is hard to even wrap your head around.
"Windchills of minus 60 would freeze your skin in less than two minutes," said Whittal. "Think about that. It takes two minutes to order a coffee at a drive-through".

Lead author of the study, Dr Richard Hall, said there was an increased chance of extreme cold, and potentially snow, over the next week or two.
A dramatic meteorological event, known as a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), is currently unfolding high over the Arctic. SSW events are some of the most extreme of atmospheric phenomena, occurring in only about 6 of every 10 winters, and see polar stratospheric temperature increase by up to 50°C over the course of a few days.
The usual strong westerly winds of the stratospheric polar vortex also break down and reverse in direction.
The new study, by experts from the universities of Exeter, Bristol and Bath, involved the analysis of 40 observed SSW events which occurred over the last 60 years. Researchers developed a novel method for tracking the signal of an SSW downward from its onset in the stratosphere to the surface.
These events are linked to severe weather events, such as the infamous 2018 "Beast from the East" which covered the UK in swathes of snow.
The study is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere from around 10-50km above the earth's surface.
Comment: 20 weather stations in China reach or break lowest temperatures recorded for December, affecting 80% of the country