Winter time atmospheric observations from the 2015 Norwegian young sea-ICE campaign (N-ICE2015) are compared with data from the 1997–1998 Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) campaign. Both data sets have a bimodal distribution of the net longwave radiative flux for January–February, with modal values of -40 W m-2 and 0 Wm-2. These values correspond to the radiatively clear and opaquely cloudy states, respectively, and are likely to be representative of the wider Arctic. The new N-ICE2015 observations demonstrate that the two winter states operate in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic and regions of thin sea ice. We compare the N-ICE2015 and SHEBA data with ERA-Interim and output from the coupled Arctic regional climate model HIRHAM-NAOSIM. ERA-Interim simulates two Arctic winter states well and captures the timing of transitions from one state to the other, despite underestimating the cloud liquid water path. HIRHAM-NAOSIM has more cloud liquid water compared with ERA-Interim but simulates the two states poorly. Our results demonstrate that models must simulate realistic synoptic forcing and temperature profiles to accurately capture the two Arctic winter states, and not only the presence of mixed-phase clouds. Using ERA-Interim, we find a positive trend in the number of opaquely cloudy days in the western Atlantic sector of the Arctic, and a strong correlation with the mean winter temperature over much of the Arctic Basin. Hence, the two Arctic winter states are important for understanding interannual variability in the Arctic. The N-ICE2015 data set will help improve our understanding of these relationships.