Weather

This article is about the gameplay mechanic. For the command, see Commands/weather.

Weather shown in 2 biomes.

Weather in Minecraft consists of occasional precipitation and storms that are temporary but global.

Behavior

A comparison of sky light levels during different types of weather. In Bedrock Edition, both rainy and stormy weather are grayscale.

The type of weather that occurs depends on several variable factors, including the temperature of the current biome, and the altitude in which it occurs.

Players who have cheats enabled can change the current weather if they wish, by entering one of the following commands: /weather rain [<duration>] or /weather thunder [<duration>], and /weather clear [<duration>] to clear the inclement weather. The <time> parameter is the duration of the weather in seconds. /toggledownfall‌ also switches to inclement weather, or vice versa.

Weather changing can be toggled on or off using the /gamerule doWeatherCycle true|false command. When doWeatherCycle is set to false, the weather does not change indefinitely, unless altered using the /weather command.

Effects

Inclement weather reduces the sky light level, depending on the severity of the storm. Because of this, villagers return to their homes until the storm passes.

The sky itself darkens, to the point where celestial bodies (including the sun, moon, and stars) are no longer visible. The clouds darken depending on the severity of the weather; note that the clouds themselves do not precipitate. Although the sun is not visible during rain, the glow associated with sunrise and sunset is still visible.

Rain

Main article: Rain

Rain occurs only in biomes with a temperature of 0.15–0.95. Rainstorms reduce the light level to 12 in full daylight.

Rain extinguishes fires (including flaming arrows). However, it does not extinguish fires on netherrack, and it does not solidify lava. Mobs that are on fire are extinguished on contact with rain; this prevents skeletons and zombies from burning during the day. On the contrary, endermen and snow golems may die due to their weakness to water. Endermen teleport randomly until they find a dry place. Blazes and striders that are brought into the Overworld take damage and eventually die from being in contact with rain.

A view of hills during rain.

Other interesting effects caused by rain:

• Fish are more abundant during rain.
• Wolves shake themselves dry if they are not moving (certain versions only).
• Farmland becomes hydrated if it isn't already.
• Rain fills up cauldrons with water, albeit slowly.

Rain particles make noise when they hit a block, and this noise can be heard at any point within 16 blocks. These particles (along with the associated sound) can be disabled by setting Particles to "Minimal" in the Video Settings menu.‌

Snow

Main article: Snowfall

An example of snow falling.

Snowfall occurs only in biomes with a temperature less than 0.15, or above a sufficient altitude. Like rainstorms, snowfall reduces the light level to 12 in full daylight.

As it snows, snow layers regenerate over all non-transparent blocks. In Bedrock Edition, these snow layers accumulate and grow over time. Snow does not cover transparent blocks.

Note that any entities on fire are not extinguished upon contact with snow.

Thunderstorm

Main article: Thunderstorm

A lightning bolt strikes a tree. A creeper can be seen walking through the woods. If it had been closer to the strike, it would have become charged.

Thunderstorms may occur in any biome. They reduces the internal sky light level. At noon the internal sky light level at surface is only 10. However, in mob spawning system, the light level from the sky is treated as if it were 5, allowing hostile mobs to spawn at any time of the day.

Lightning

Main article: Thunderstorm § Lightning

Lightning occurs frequently during thunderstorms, if there is rain. It strikes randomly, creating fires where it strikes, igniting any nearby flammable materials, but the rain usually puts the fire out before it can spread. Note that lightning can strike only blocks that are exposed to the rain. Lightning does not occur naturally in biomes that are too hot or dry to have rain or so cold that it snows instead of rains, but can still be summoned with a channeling trident.

Lightning deals 5 damage to entities on normal difficulty, not including the damage done by the fire it causes. It turns creepers into charged creepers, villagers into witches, pigs into zombified piglins, and mooshrooms into their brown variants.

Lightning may randomly spawn a "skeleton trap" skeletal horse, with a chance of 3.75–7.5% on Easy, 7.5–20% on Normal, and 11.25–33.75% on Hard, depending on the regional difficulty.

Thunder is a sound that occurs every time lightning strikes. It can be heard by the player up to 160,000 blocks away from the position of the lightning strike. Thunder is heard instantly, regardless the player's distance from the lightning strike itself.

Lightning may be manually summoned with the /summon lightning_bolt command. While it is summoned as an entity, it cannot be referred to by commands or selectors.

If the player throws a trident enchanted with channeling during a thunderstorm, it summons a lightning bolt at the thrown area.

History

Rain pouring down in Classic

Java Edition Classic
October 22, 2009					Showcased rain.
October 22, 2009					Rain is now shown to be thinner.
?					Rain was introduced purely for cosmetic purposes. The mechanics were simple, testing only if there is a block above to shelter the rain.
0.27 SURVIVAL TEST					F5 now toggles rain.
0.29_01					Rain can now be toggled only in Creative mode.
Java Edition Indev
20100218					F5 no longer toggles rain.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.4					Added Winter mode. While generating a world, there is a 25% chance to get a snowy world, where snow falls continuously. This feature was eventually removed with the introduction of biomes.
v1.2.0		?			Removed Winter mode, and replaced it with biomes.
Java Edition Beta
1.5					Weather was introduced. Rain, snowfall, and thunderstorms were implemented after a teaser video was released. Rain looks identical to the rain in Classic, but also plays two different sound files.
					Added the ability for lightning strikes to charge creepers and transform pigs into zombie pigmen.
1.5_01					Fixed a bug where rain fell through certain blocks like glass, stairs and slabs.
1.6		Test Build 3			Fixed a bug where the rain seemed to freeze when climbing down ladders until you reached the bottom or changed direction, possibly indicating that you climbed at same speed as the rain fell.
					Fixed a bug where rain and snow fell underwater.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease			Snowfall destroys redstone, torches, saplings, and minecart rails.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			Fixed the above bug.
1.3.1		12w23a			Weather transitioning was added.
1.4.2		12w32a			Added the /weather command, which can change weather.
1.7.2		13w39a			The rendering brightness is now decreased during thunderstorms. Previously, the sky would darken, but the ground wouldn't appear to get darker, even though monsters could spawn.
					The clouds and the sky now appear much darker during thunderstorms.
1.8		14w03a			Lightning now transforms villagers into witches.
		14w30a			Lightning can now be manually summoned with the /summon LightningBolt command.
1.9		15w38a			There is a chance (depending on regional difficulty) that a lightning strike spawns a "skeleton trap" skeletal horse.
		16w04a			Rain sounds updated. Now more ambient/quieter and sounds more realistic.
1.11		16w38a			Added /gamerule doWeatherCycle, which toggles natural weather changing.
1.17		20w46a			Cauldrons can now be filled with powder snow during snowfall.
1.18		21w44a			Sleeping now only resets the weather cycle if it is currently raining or snowing. Therefore, sleeping frequently no longer prevents rain or snow from happening.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.12.1		build 1			Added weather and weather transitioning.
		build 2			Leaves in snowy taigas now appear frost covered when snowfall happens.
		build 9			Rain is now visible from under water.
					Rain should cause less lag.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		?			Weather can now be skipped by sleeping.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added weather.
TU5					Improved the rain edges (when looking up in rain).
TU25	CU14	1.17			Clouds are now black during thunderstorms, thus telling the difference between rain and thunderstorms.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Weather transitioning was added.

Issues

Issues relating to "Weather" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

Rain falling into the void.

• Rain and snow 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 and snow are both considered the same weather effect by the game. This explains why there is no /weather snow command.
• Rain and snow actually fall one block into the void (Layer -1). This can be seen in Creative Mode by floating in the Void. Note that no particles are emitted from the rain, due to the absence of a block below it for it to fall on.
• Lightning does not have an image file associated with it. Thus, it is coded directly into the game engine, allowing for dynamic, realistic lightning.

Gallery

• 

  An image of snow and rain from Notch's twitter.

• 

  Rain in the forest biome.

• 

  Snowfall in the taiga biome.

• 

  Lightning during a thunderstorm.

• 

  Rain not falling in a desert. (click to see rain)

• 

  Weather darkens the sky to the extent of the sun being hidden from view.

• 

  Rain & snow, animated

• 

  An example of rain falling over a river while snow falls around it.

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  The void during a lightning strike.

• 

  The fire that a lightning bolt creates.

• 

  Rain in jungle biome.

References

Environment 

View at: Template:Environment/content [edit]