The characteristics of extreme cold and warm events (ECE; EWE) over the whole China in December, January and February are investigated using the observed daily 2m temperature for 1961-2012.The EWE (ECE) over the whole China is defined as the value of the normalized leading primary component in 2m temperature larger (less) than 1.28 (-1.28) standard deviation.Among the three months, both the EWE and ECE in February are most frequent and strongestand least frequent in December and weakest in January.More than 50% total EWE and ECE in February and less than 40% total EWE and ECE in January exhibit persistent feature (defined as the days of the continuous EWE (ECE) in each year equal to or larger than 5).Generally, the persistent ECE are more frequent than the persistent EWE.The EWE (ECE) in February exhibit intensive increasing (decreasing) tendency and shows more (less) persistent feature in 1961-1986 than that in 1987-2012.