Snowy Plains

The snowy tundra is an uncommon snowy/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 almost entirely with snow layers, which are often stacked in Bedrock Edition. Spruce and oak trees, tall grass, dandelions, and poppies generate infrequently, breaking the snow layers. The exposed grass and leaves take on a dark aqua green color. Lakes generate somewhat 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.

Unique to these biomes are generated igloos. Igloos can be especially 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, like their taiga variants, and are covered in snow layers. Also unique to the tundra, along with frozen rivers and ice spikes, are the rare polar bear mobs and strays, variants of skeletons that shoot arrows of Slowness.

Survival in the tundra can be quite difficult due to the general sparseness of the biome and near-total lack of passive mobs; only polar bears and rabbits may spawn here. Infrequent spruce and oak trees are the only 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 cold 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 trees. Igloos, villages, and pillager outposts can generate in this biome, and Polar Bears and Strays are able to spawn here. In Bedrock Edition, Illager patrol cannot spawn in this biome.

Snowy Mountains
These hills are rather taller than most other hill biomes in the game, with heights comparable to the mountains biome, though with less erratic terrain generation. Neither igloos or villages generate in this biome, though polar bears and strays still spawn. Caves frequently generate on the sides of the mountains.

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 glacier-like lakes of packed ice generate as well. The spikes come in two sizes; a short, wide spike, and a tall, thin spike. The short spikes generate much more often than the tall spikes. Short spikes are about 10-20 blocks tall, while tall spikes can be over 50 blocks tall. Prior to 1.13, this biome was the only source of packed ice in the game. Neither igloos nor villages generate in this biome, though polar bears 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, making wood very difficult to come by. Snow layers can still form atop the snow blocks, making them seem taller than they actually are. Players may camp out atop the ice spikes during nighttime and avoid most hostile mobs.