Connection between the North Pacific winter cyclone activity (storm track) and the previous autumn Arctic sea ice coverage (SIC) is investigated based on the ERA-Interim reanalysis data from 1979 to 2014. The first empirical orthogonal function (EOF1) shows that the spatial distribution of winter cyclone frequencies exhibit a north-south seesaw over the North Pacific. The corresponding principle component (PC1) shows a trend of northward shifting of cyclone activities, that is, winter cyclones over the Bering Sea and near the Aleutian Islands increase. Regression between autumn SIC and the PC1 indicates that the northward shift of North Pacific storm track corresponds to a significant decrease of the autumn SIC over a key region expanding zonally from east Siberia Sea to Beaufort Sea. Our analysis further shows that in the winters following the autumns with less SIC over the key region, significant positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies appear over south of the Aleutian Islands and south of Gulf of Alaska, which leads to an increase of baroclinic instability over Bering sea thus more cyclones. Corresponding to the positive SST anomalies, a strong positive geopotential height anomaly exist over Gulf of Alaska in winter, which guides the cyclones along a more northward path.