Abstract It has been argued that fewer cold extremes will be expected to occur over most midlatitude areas, because of anthropogenic-induced global warming. However, East Asia repeatedly suffered from unexpected cold spells during the winter of 2015/16, and the low surface air temperature (SAT) during 21–25 January 2016 broke the previous calendar record from 1961. We hypothesize that cold extremes such as these occur because of Arctic amplification (AA) of global warming. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the changes of SAT variability in the winter season over East Asia. Our results show that the SAT variability (measured by the standard deviation of the winter season daily mean SAT) over East Asia has significantly increased in the era of AA during 1988/89–2015/16 and exhibits a polarization between warm and cold extremes, popularly dubbed as “weather whiplash.” This phenomenon is driven by both the thermodynamic effects of global warming and the dynamic effects of AA. Global warming favors a rising SAT and more frequent warm extremes. The AA phenomenon strengthens the wavy components of midlatitude circulation, leading to more frequent blockings over the Ural region and a stronger Siberian high in north Asia. This dynamic effect of AA enhances the intrusion of cold air from Siberia into East Asia and causes cold extremes. Because there is a comparable increase of frequency of both warm and cold extremes, the SAT variability significantly increases in unison with AA, but little change is observed in the seasonal mean SAT of East Asia. This implies increased risks of both cold and warm extremes over East Asia exist even during global warming.