Abstract: With NCEP/NCAR reanalysis datasets and China basic data 825 station ground-temperature-homogenization datasets, an improved "three-dimensional wind speed trajectory inverse method" was adopted to trace cold air intrusion tracks that occurred during the winter half-years (i.e., October to April) for the northeast China during the 43-year span between 1970 and 2013. The results showed that there were a total of 230 northwest tracks, 75 west tracks, and 101 north tracks. The imminent circulation evolution pattern prior to outbreaks essentially caused three categories of cold air masses to undergo dramatic temperature increases, thereby reducing the impacts of source regional differences on the subject air masses. The measure of the annual frequency reduction in west tracks was determined to be 0.26 incidents every ten years, while there was no apparent trend for other tracks' annual frequencies. By contrast, west tracks mainly impacted Northeast China; northwest tracks could last more than 2.4 days in Northeast China, and it had more influence over the East and South China than the west tracks; north tracks probably brought abnormal low temperatures to Northeast and East China, and a temperature decreased to the southeast regions for over 2.8 consecutive days.