Rain

Rain is an environmental effect that occurs occasionally in Minecraft. As with snowfall, it is a type of weather.

Behavior


Rain is a temporary, global occurrence that can happen randomly at any time but not in Taiga, Tundra or Desert biomes. If you are near to both a biome that produces rain and another that produces snow, you can see both snow and rain.

Rain and snow



 * Thunderstorms may occur.
 * The light from the sun decreases by 3, to light level 12 in full daylight. Moonlight is not reduced, and remains at light level 4.
 * The Sun, Moon and stars are no longer visible.
 * The sky during the day is a grayish blue hue and clouds are gray instead of white.

Rain

 * It does not solidify lava or put out torches, but it does put out fires, except those on netherrack.
 * Mobs on fire will be put out on contact with rain; this prevents skeletons and zombies from burning in daylight.
 * Wolves will shake themselves dry (certain versions only).
 * Farmland is hydrated if it isn't already.
 * Endermen may die due to their weakness to water. They will also frantically teleport around until they are in a safe place.
 * Blazes that entered the Overworld, either via a spawn egg or a Nether Portal will also be harmed by rain.

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.

After Minecraft Beta 1.5's announcement, a preview video was uploaded onto the TeamMojang YouTube channel showing weather and other future updates. Rain and falling snow were included in Beta 1.5. Rain looks identical to the rain in Classic, but also plays two different sound files.

Bugs

 * Rain cannot pass through trapdoors, open or closed.
 * Rain falls on rivers, even if they are passing through deserts. This is because rivers are coded as separate, unique biomes.

Trivia



 * Rain falls at approximately the same speed one can descend while flying. This means that it is actually possible to free fall faster than the rain particles.
 * From Minecraft 1.0.0 onwards, if you turn particles to minimal rain is silent.
 * Rain falls only in the two middle lines of a block, therefore it looks like it is not raining directly above you, but actually the "square" in the sky is shifted half a block in each direction.
 * Although you cannot see the sun during rain, the glow associated with sunrise and sunset is still visible.
 * When the player uses a Bed, the rain stops when they wake up.
 * Rain still falls above the clouds. Notch's explanation is that the gray above the clouds during a storm is another layer of clouds and the origin of the rain.
 * Rain particles are only visible in nearby chunks, but its effects occur over all loaded areas.
 * Rain actually falls one block into the void (Layer -1). This can be achieved by digging a vertical shaft down in Creative mode, removing the bottom layers of Bedrock and floating inside the Void (in flying mode). Note that no particles are emitted from the rain, due to the absence of a block below it.
 * Rain makes noise when it hits a block, and the noise can be heard at any point within 16 blocks. This means that if the player is flying in creative mode at least sixteen blocks above the nearest block rain is hitting, the player cannot hear the rain.
 * The average rainfall lasts 10-20 minutes, and there is a .5 to 7.5 day delay between rain.