The impact of the spring climate on the Northern Hemisphere’s summer vegetation activity and extremes has been extensively researched, but less attention has been devoted to whether and how the winter climate may additionally influence vegetation extremes in the summer. Here, we provide insights into the influence of winter temperature and precipitation on summer vegetation extremes in the Northern Hemisphere. To do this, we identify positive and negative extremes in the summer leaf area index (LAI, a proxy for vegetation activity) and assess winter effects on those extremes using logistic regression at the regional scale. Over a quarter of the regions in the Northern Hemisphere show strong winter climate preconditioning on summer LAI extremes, which is typically stronger for croplands than forests. In regions with strong winter preconditioning, the spring LAI mediates the link between winter climate and summer LAI extremes through the ecological memory in seasonal legacy effects. Our findings suggest that extremely low summer LAI in both croplands and forests is preconditioned by colder and drier winters, while extremely high summer LAI in forests is associated with warmer and wetter winters. For low summer LAI in croplands, warmer winters are associated with an increased likelihood of extremes in mid-latitude regions and a reduced likelihood in high-latitude regions. Consideration of winter preconditioning effects may improve our understanding of inter-annual variability of vegetation activity and support agricultural and land management practitioners in anticipating the detrimental effects of winter on crop yields and forest conditions.