Snow Ice and Nature

Snow, Ice and Nature

The world around the players changes with the seasons. All changes happen in the Overworld only, in an area around each player.

Winter: snow and ice

• Snow layers slowly cover the ground around players while it is winter.
• Open water freezes to ice.
• Short grass and ferns are covered by snow.

Snow and ice are placed carefully so your builds stay clean:

• Snow only lands on the top-most block of a spot. It never appears inside houses, below roofs, below bridges or in caves.
• Snow is not placed on blocks where it would look wrong, such as paths, slabs, stairs, fences, walls or trapdoors.
• Only still water (source blocks) freezes, and only when nothing is above it. Water indoors, in aquariums or under a roof stays liquid.
• A torch within about 4 blocks keeps water from freezing. Use this to keep your fish ponds and farm water open in winter.

Spring and later: melting

After winter, snow layers and ice melt again around the players. In summer they melt four times as fast.

Biomes that are naturally cold (snowy plains, frozen oceans, high mountains and so on) keep their snow and ice all year. Season System only removes what does not belong there.

Spring: regrowth

In spring, short grass grows back on grass blocks around players, and now and then a flower appears.

Summer: flowers dry out

In summer, small flowers around players slowly dry out and disappear.

Autumn: leaves and dying grass

• Leaf litter appears on the ground around players (only on Minecraft versions that have leaf litter).
• Short grass, tall grass and ferns slowly die off.

Seasonal colours

Grass and leaves change their colour with the season: fresh green in spring, rich green in summer, gold, orange and red-brown in autumn and pale colours in winter. Oak, birch, dark oak and jungle leaves (and pale oak leaves on versions that have them) get seasonal tints.

Ambience

• Small seasonal particles float around you.
• Quiet seasonal sounds can be heard now and then, for example birds in spring or bees in summer.
• During weather events there are more particles and sounds.
• Optionally, extra snow particles can be shown around you while it snows (winter_client_snow_enabled, off by default).

Settings

Every one of these features can be turned off, and the radius, speed and chance can be changed. See the sections Snow and ice, Plants and ground cover and Visuals and sounds in the Configuration.