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Extreme climate events can have significant consequences on ecosystems and by extension human populations. Over 50 million of the world’s lakes typically freeze each winter, and the absence of winter ice cover, in lakes where ice has historically been present, can be characterized as an extreme event. We quantified the effects of extreme climate events on lake ice cover using 78‐year ice records from 122 lakes to show that: 1) extreme ice‐free years are becoming more frequent and severe, 2) winter air temperature is a significant predictor of ice cover that was driven by large‐scale climate oscillations, 3) extremes in temperature are closely related to extremes in ice cover, and 4) ice‐free years are forecasted to result in significant loss of ice‐cover in the future. Without drastic reductions in carbon emissions, we can expect the widespread loss of lake ice cover could have significant socio‐economic and biological implications.