Snowy Plains

The snowy tundra is an uncommon snowy and icy biome, typically generating near other snowy or cold biomes such as the snowy taiga. The biome family has a total of three individual variant biomes.

Description
The tundra is vast and covered with snow layers, which are often stacked in Bedrock Edition. Spruce trees, tall grass, dandelions, and poppies generate infrequently, breaking the snow layers. The exposed grass and leaves take an aqua tone. Lakes generate more or less frequently, though freeze over soon after generation due to the temperature if not exposed to light; thus, any sugar cane that generates alongside these lakes will uproot themselves shortly after. In the rare Ice Spikes variant, packed ice generates naturally. Lava lakes that generate within the tundra melt the snow layers around them.

River biomes that cut through tundra are partially frozen, if not fully frozen in the case of the variant Frozen River biome.

Like in snowy taigas, igloos are found. They are difficult to spot in the tundra, due to the snow blocks camouflaging among the snow layers. Villages that generate in the tundra are made of spruce wood, snow blocks, blue ice and packed ice. Unique to the tundra, along with frozen rivers and ice spikes, are polar bears and strays, variants of skeletons that shoot arrows of Slowness.

Survival in the tundra is quite difficult due to the sparseness of the biome and the lack of animals; only polar bears and rabbits may naturally spawn here, though cows, sheep, pigs and horses may spawn as part of villages. Infrequent spruce trees are the only natural source of wood in this biome, and maintaining water sources can be tough due to water in this biome freezing into ice, if it is not protected by light or a roof. Strays often spawning in place of skeletons can make dealing with hostile mobs even more difficult, due to their slowness arrows, and aggravating polar bears, or even coming near one, if accompanied by cubs, can lead to fatal consequences if unprepared. However, the tundra can be valuable to late-game players due to the occurrence of packed ice generating in the Ice Spikes variant. As the tundra is a snowy biome, it snows rather than rains, and thus lightning never strikes in these biomes.

Variants
There are a total of three snowy tundra biome variants.

Snowy Tundra
This is the standard and most abundant Snowy Tundra variant. It features characteristically flat snow-covered plains and sparsely scattered spruce trees, with the occasional igloos, villages, and pillager outposts. Polar bears, rabbits and strays are able to spawn here. In Bedrock Edition, no hostile mobs other than strays and skeletons can naturally spawn here, excluding spawners, raids, and zombie sieges.

Snowy Mountains
These hills are taller than most other hill biomes in the game, with heights comparable to the mountains biome, though with a less erratic terrain generation. No structures generate in this biome, though polar bears, rabbits and strays still spawn. Caves frequently generate on the sides of the mountains. In Bedrock Edition, no hostile mobs other than strays and skeletons may naturally spawn here.

Ice Spikes
This rare variant features large numbers of packed ice spikes across its landscape. Additionally, all grass blocks are replaced with snow blocks, and glaciers of packed ice generate as well instead of lakes. The spikes come in two sizes: a short, wide spike, and a tall, thin spike. The short spikes generate more often than the tall spikes. Short spikes are about 15 blocks tall, while tall spikes can be over 50 blocks tall. Prior to the Update Aquatic, this biome was the only source of packed ice in the game. No buildings may generate in this biome, though polar bears, rabbits and strays still spawn.

In addition to the ice spikes, the terrain in this biome is more erratic and taller than the regular tundra, comparable to the snowy mountains. Trees do not generate in this variant either. Snow layers still form atop the snow blocks, making them seem taller than they actually are.