Weather



Weather was announced at April 7th 2011 and added in the 1.5 update, which was released on April 19th 2011. The type of weather can depend on the biome; arctic biomes can get snow, others get rain, and deserts get no precipitation whatsoever. Weather is very rare though and does not occur often. Rain makes the sky darker, blocks out the sun, stars, and moon and makes Wolves wetter. It also causes crops to grow and will put out fires (except burning netherrack), but it will not cause lava to turn into cobblestone or obsidian. Rain can also make puddles in small holes in the ground. When snowing, ice will grow back and snow will cover the ground where it can reach. There are also occasional thunder and lightning during both rain and snow.

History
In early Classic, rain was introduced to the game to test out this feature. It was purely for cosmetic purposes at that time. The mechanics were simple, only testing if there is a block above to shelter the rain. It could be toggled on and off in-game using the F5 key. This feature later vanished when Indev was introduced,.

Minecraft Alpha brought a test for snow. Generating a world during that time brings a 50% chance to get a snowy world, where ice and snow will regenerate. This feature was removed with the introduction of biomes.

Particle effects file for rain and snow were never taken down from the game and has remained as an unused feature. Because of that, mods could easily re-enable this feature.

After Minecraft Beta 1.5's announcement, a preview video was also uploaded onto the TeamMojang YouTube channel showing weather and other future updates. Weather was then introduced the following week.

Rain
In all biomes, save Tundra and Desert, rain will occasionally fall. Rain will water crop tiles and cause wolves and tamed wolves to become wet. There is also a higher chance of catching fish whilst raining. In addition to this, rain will create a light sound around you while it falls.

Snow
Snow will only fall in the Tundra biome and causes water that does not have a block above it to become ice, as well as covering all blocks in snow with the exception of Glass which it will not fall through.

Trivia

 * Rain and snow are temporary but global occurrences.
 * Rain is a single moving sprite.
 * Water does not stop rain like a solid block.
 * You can't see the sun, moon and stars while it's raining, and days are light level 14 instead of 15.
 * Higher odds of catching fish while raining.
 * It does not solidify lava, but it does put out fires.
 * Wolves get wet in the rain and crops are watered.
 * Ice and snow regrow whilst snowing.
 * Rain does not put out netherrack fires.
 * Lightning sets fire to the ground upon hitting it, but that is immediately extinguished by the rain, unless it strikes netherrack.
 * If Lightning strikes a pig, it morphes into a zombie pigman.
 * If lightning strikes a creeper, it becomes electrified and has a much more powerful explosion.
 * Thunderstorms are much darker than normal rain, at light level 7 or less.This is dark enough to spawn enemy mobs.
 * Rain prevents monsters from burning.
 * Rain does not put out torches.
 * Rain and snow still fall even when above cloud level.
 * Rain used to fall through certain blocks like glass, stairs and slabs. This was fixed a day after the release of 1.5.
 * The sound of rain does not play when the graphics setting is set to Fast, nor does the particles associated with rain hitting solid blocks show.

Bugs

 * Occasionally, in an area with many biome changes, the rain will appear to fall onto snow whilst not melting it.
 * In SSP lightning on Steps is broken now. Step turns black (on newly placed steps)
 * Sometimes rain falls in snow biomes.
 * Rain can pass through water.