Weather

Weather in Minecraft consists of occasional precipitation and storms that are temporary but global.^[1]

Behavior[]

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^{[Bedrock Edition only]} 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[]

Rain occurs only in biomes with a temperature of 0.15–0.95. Rainstorms reduce the light level to 12 in full daylight.^[2]

Rain extinguishes fires (including flaming arrows^[3]). However, it does not extinguish fires on netherrack,^[4] 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.

Other interesting effects caused by rain:

• Fish are more abundant during rain.^[5]
• Wolves shake themselves dry if they are not moving (certain versions only).
• Farmland becomes hydrated if it isn't already.^[6]
• 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.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Snow[]

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.^[7] 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[]

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.^[8]

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.

Video[]

History[]

Issues[]

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

Trivia[]

• 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.^[11]
• 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.

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  Lightning during a thunderstorm.

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

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  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.

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  The fire that a lightning bolt creates.

• 

  Rain in jungle biome.

References[]