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The winter of 2013–14 had unusual weather in many parts of the world. Here we analyze the cold extremes that were widely reported in North America and the lack of cold extremes in western Europe. We perform a statistical analysis of cold extremes at two representative stations in these areas: Chicago, Illinois, and De Bilt, the Netherlands. This shows that the lowest minimum temperature of the winter was not very unusual in Chicago, even in the current warmer climate. Around 1950 it would have been completely normal. The same holds for multiday cold periods. Only the whole winter temperature was unusual, with a return time larger than 25 years. In the Netherlands, the opposite holds: the absence of any cold waves was highly unusual even now, and would have been extremely improbable halfway through the previous century. These results are representative of other stations in the regions. The …