[Background] Vegetation coverage on the Loess Plateau has increased evidently attributing to the project of returning farmland to forest/grassland. Studies by climate modeling suggested that local climate would be impacted by land cover change. Further research is needed to make sure that weather evidence could be found in observed climate records and to explore the effect of vegetation restoration on regional climate. [Methods] The meteorological data from the Loess Plateau since 1981 and MODIS/ NDVI data from 2000 to 2013 were analyzed by GIS and statistical methods. Mann-Kendall trend test and linear regression were used to analyze the time trend of climatic elements,and Kriging interpolation was used to analyze spatial variation of climate on the Loess Plateau with data from 130 meteorological stations; a linear regression was used to analyze increasing rate of NDVI. And Pearson linear correlation coefficient was used to indicate the correlation between climatic elements and NDVI. [Results] 1) In the past 30 years, air temperature increased significantly while no trends were found for other climate elements. Since the projects of returning farmland to forest, the precipitation increased while the wind speed and the relative humidity decreased significantly and air temperature did not keep the increasing trend. 2) Changing rates of the annual average maximum temperature and minimum relative humidity since 2000 showed a similar stripped distribution pattern as NDVI on the Loess Plateau. 3) NDVI had a positive correlation with minimum temperature from January to April and relative humidity in May and July but had a negative correlation with maximum temperature in July and with the wind speed from May to September. 4) In spatial distribution,although regional average relative humidity deceased significantly, approximately 30% of the regions minimum relative humidity showed an increasing trend. NDVI had a significant negative correlation with annual average maximum wind speed in the southern temperate zone and had a positive correlation with annual average minimum relative humidity in the mid-temperate zone. [Conclusions] Climate on the Loess Plateau is influenced by the global climate change but vegetation restoration since the implement of returning farmland to forest/grassland had strong correlation with local climate,especially on the aspect of air temperature,wind speed and relative humidity.