Snow

Snow is a ground cover block that is commonly caused by snowfall.

Natural generation
Snow naturally generates in snowy biomes – snowy tundra, ice spikes, frozen oceans, snowy taiga, frozen river and snowy beach – and in the mountains biome above layer 92.

Snow generates in single layers in Java and Legacy Console Editions, and can generate in multiple layers in Bedrock Edition.

Snowfall
In snowy biomes or in cold biomes at varying layers, the weather can snow instead of rain. In snowy weather, snow generates on random non-transparent blocks with a block light level of 10 or less, with the exception of ice and packed ice.

In Bedrock Edition and Legacy Console Editions multiple snow layers are built up naturally during snowfall; in Java, snowfall creates only one layer.

Snow layers do not generate if the gamerule doweathercycle has been set to false.

Snow golems
Snow golems generate a trail of snow in snowy, cold, and some medium biomes, or any non-dry biome in Bedrock Edition.

Obtaining
Snow can be obtained using a shovel with the Silk Touch enchantment. Destroying snow with a non silk-touch shovel yields one snowball per layer. If it is destroyed with anything other than a shovel, nothing is dropped (even if using a different Silk Touch tool). Snow can also be obtained by causing it to drop into an invalid block space, in which case it drops itself. The dropped snow layer also corresponds with how many layers were in the broken snow pile.

Cover
If the snow is on a grass block, mycelium or podzol, the ground cover turns white on the top and around the sides. Snow does not damage tilled and hydrated field areas – it cannot be placed on farmland. A gravity-affected block like sand or gravel does not fall if snow covers the block below it, but the gravity-affected block does replace a snow layer when falling onto it. The texture of the dirt portion of the block also changes when snow is placed on top.

$$, if leaves are topped with a layer of snow, particles of snow appear to fall through the leaves from the snow layer.

$$, snow layers can occupy the same space as one-block flowers, mushrooms, and one-block ferns and grass, (however two-block tall plants do not work) and can be layered and mined normally. Placing snow on already-existing plant blocks causes snow to appear around them, but placing plants into an area where there is snow removes the snow.

Melting
Snow melts if there is a heat block, or block light level of 12 or more. $$, it also melts in dry biomes, regardless of block light or daylight level. If there are multiple layers, all layers melt at once; the snow levels do not gradually reduce in height.

Foxes
When a fox gets stuck in snow after missing an attack on prey, it emits particles as it emerges from the snow.

Placement
Snow can be placed only on a solid block. $$, snow breaks if its support block is removed.$$, snow is affected by gravity and falls if it becomes unsupported, and breaks if it falls onto an unsuitable block. A player can jump up 1 block and 3 snow layers.

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, top snow uses the following data values:

Trivia

 * Snow can be stacked to a full block beside a cactus without destroying the cactus.
 * Attempting to place a torch on snow replaces the snow with a torch.
 * Snow on a block of soul sand makes the soul sand act like a normal block.
 * Snow layers of 2 to 7 thickness prevent hostile mobs from spawning.
 * In Spectator mode, if the player is positioned at the correct height, they can see the snowy texture of the top of grass blocks.
 * Eight layers of snow is equivalent to a snow block.