Abstract:Based on the snow cover data and meteorological element data at 123 meteorological stations in Northeast China during the period of 1960-2006, the spatial and temporal characteristics of snow cover are analyzed by the area weighted method, empirical orthogonal function, Morlet wavelet analysis and power spectral method. The results show that the cumulative snow depth in Northeast China is increasing slowly in the recent 40 years. The cumulative snow depth is no obvious changes in autumn, increasing in winter, and decreasing in spring, in which the increasing cumulative snow depth in winter is the key factor to the increasing annual cumulative snow depth. We hold the opinion that there are three main spatial patterns of cumulative snow depth in Northeast China by using EOF method, of which, the first pattern is consistently more (less) than normal, the second pattern is a seesaw between southern (northern) region and northern (southern) region, and the third pattern is a seesaw between central region (other region) and other region (central region).There is a quasi period of 7 years revealed by Morlet wavelet analysis and power spectral method, its period displays a decreasing trend and has a good response to the global warming.