Snow

Snow is a block that is found near Ice Plains and Taiga biomes. Snow can be removed like any other block. Placing a light source will cause snow around it to melt and will prevent them from regenerating during snowfall. Snow melts in the same pattern as ice.

If the snow is on a grass block, the grass will turn white. This does not affect grass growth. Snow will not damage tilled and hydrated field areas, nor will it protect those plowed fields from being trampled on. Gravity-affected blocks like sand and gravel will not fall if the block below them has snow on it.

Destroying snow with a shovel yields one snowball, which can then be crafted into snow blocks or be thrown. If it is destroyed with anything other than a shovel, nothing is dropped.

If snow forms on top of a cactus, the cactus will still cause damage when stepped on or touched. Cacti cannot grow if there is snow on top of it.

Snow will not form on top of glass, ice, piston, glowstone, slabs or stairs or any other transparent/light emitting blocks.

Snow melts near light sources (except sunlight), up to 3 blocks from lava and glowstone, 2 blocks from torches, and it won't regrow 2 additional blocks away.

Snow can be collected in large quantities through snow farming.

History

 * Prior to the Halloween Update, snow could only be found on maps that were in Winter Mode. When creating a new save, a map had a 1/4 chance of having worldwide snowfall. Since Beta 1.5 however, Snow can occur in arctic Biomes, and since 1.1, tundra biomes and arctic biomes.


 * Due to a missing feature in the Halloween Update, snow did not regenerate in versions Alpha 1.2 to Beta 1.4_01, but returned in Beta 1.5, as part of the new weather features.


 * Before the Alpha 1.0.5 update any blocks placed on snow would appear one block above the snow.


 * In earlier versions of Minecraft, a player could easily harvest snow by placing a block of water. By doing so, the player received a large amount of Snowballs with little effort.


 * After the 1.8 update, snow biomes were temporarily removed as they were in development. Notch said that snow was rather ugly and he was going to make it more awesome. In 1.0.0 snow biomes were re-added.


 * Before snapshot 12w21a, snow grass and snow flat layer was not available to be manually placed in Creative mode. In snapshot 12w21a, snow was made available in the Creative Inventory.

Bugs

 * Floating snow can be found above lakes in snowy biomes. This is presumably caused by the generation of underground lakes near the surface. The lake removes the block which the snow rested upon, but not the snow. The snow can be walked through and fallen through, occasionally causing the player to unexpectedly fall into a lake from what appeared to be a solid ledge. The floating snow creates an interesting effect and can be used to create realistic looking tables and other furniture.
 * If you put a block on floating snow, all of the nearby floating snow will disappear, similar to destroying a block of floating sand.
 * Snow can also spawn on top of oceans in rare occasions and will disappear when hit by a boat. This snow will spawn on the top layer of water not one block above it, giving it the appearance of clumps of snow floating in the water.
 * Sometimes snow will not be spawned, but you can find a lake covered in ice, but then when it snows there will be snow there.
 * In 1.3.2 (fixed in 1.4), using the pick block key in multiplayer did indeed give that player the snowfall block, but if you tried to place it, it would instantly disappear. This did not happen in single player. This may or may not have been caused by using a 1.3.2 client to connect to a 1.3.1 server.

Trivia

 * The "topSnow" block's thickness is based on its data value.
 * As of Beta 1.9 pre5, the top of Grass' and Snowy Grass' textures were slightly changed.
 * A Snow Golem can be used to generate an unlimited amount of snow without the need to explore more land or wait for snowfall.
 * The snow and wool sounds are actually slightly different.
 * Attempting to place torches on snow will replace the snow with a torch. Thus, it is possible to place torches on workbenches or furnaces with snow on top.
 * Snow, in a Hell biome (only obtainble by world editing or Superflat customization), looks thicker than normal.