Minecraft:Thunderstorm

File:Lightning.png

Lightning during a thunderstorm.

File:LightningStrike.gif

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

A thunderstorm is a somewhat uncommon and dangerous Minecraft:weather condition.

Behavior

Thunderstorms are an uncommon temporary, global occurrence<ref>Template:Tweet</ref> that can happen randomly at any time, within the Minecraft:Overworld. Whether it rains, snows, or no precipitation is active during a thunderstorm varies depending on the Minecraft:temperature of the biome, as well as the current Minecraft:altitude.

• While the clear counter is counting down, the weather is always clear. This counter is used only when the Template:Cmd command is issued, setting the counter to a value given by the player or 5 minutes.
• The rain counter counts down to zero, and each time it reaches zero, the rain is toggled on or off. When the rain is turned on, the counter is reset to a value between 12,000-24,000 ticks (0.5-1 game days), and when the rain is turned off the counter is reset to a value of 12,000-180,000 ticks (0.5-7.5 game days).
• Like the rain counter, the thunder counter also toggles thunder on and off when it reaches zero, but clear weather overrides the "on" state. When thunder is turned on, the thunder counter is reset to 3,600-15,600 ticks (3-13 minutes), and when thunder is turned off the counter resets to 12,000-180,000 ticks (0.5-7.5 game days).
• Thunder can occur in the game only when the rain and thunder states both happen to be "on" at the same time. The random combinations of the states toggled by the rain and thunder counters result in a 1.44% chance for a thunderstorm to occur, or an approximate average real-time duration of 9 hours between thunderstorms.
• The values in each range are uniformly distributed.

Thunderstorms can be skipped entirely with the use of a Minecraft:bed, regardless of the time of day.

Effects

File:Thunder Vibrant Visuals.png

A thunderstorm with Vibrant Visuals.

As with rain and snow, the sky is darkened and the Minecraft:sun, Minecraft:moon, and Minecraft:stars are no longer visible. Template:IN, the sky color is changed to Template:Color, which is blended with a weight of 75% with Minecraft:biome and rain sky colors. The sun and moon are still visible in dry biomes in Bedrock Edition. Thunderstorms darken the world, causing the Minecraft:light level from the sky to visually decrease to 10. The clouds darken from white to dark gray (95% Template:Color in Bedrock Edition), although clouds themselves do not precipitate or create lightning. Minecraft:Fog is colored Template:Color (Template:Color in Minecraft:pale gardens), and is much denser, decreasing view distance by 30%. While the sun is not visible during rain, the glow associated with sunrise and sunset is still visible.

Unlike during regular rainstorms or snowstorms, the Minecraft:sky light level is reduced by 10 for the purposes of hostile mob spawning, which allows hostile Minecraft:mobs to spawn at any time of day as long as the block light level is 0, even in dry biomes which have visibly full daylight in Bedrock Edition.

Lightning

Lightning is a lethal element of thunderstorms. Lightning momentarily increases the sky light's brightness to slightly greater than full daylight. The Minecraft:sky box itself gets colored Template:Color in Bedrock Edition, blended with other colors with a weight of 45%.

File:Lightning fire.png

The fire that a lightning bolt creates.

Lightning strikes randomly and creates Minecraft:fires (only on normal and hard difficulty) in a 2 block radius where it strikes. Such fires act normally, igniting all flammable materials, detonating Minecraft:TNT, and even activating Minecraft:nether portals. The lightning itself, however, is not destructive and does not destroy blocks. While most fires are extinguished by the rain, areas that block rain can allow the fire to spread, and any Minecraft:netherrack, Minecraft:magma blocks, Minecraft:soul sand, or Minecraft:soul soil lit by lightning is not extinguished by the rain.

Most Minecraft:entities struck by lightning are dealt Template:Hp damage (sometimes twice in succession) and are set on fire, which may cause additional damage. Minecraft:Boats (including Minecraft:boats with chests) may be destroyed entirely leaving nothing behind.

If the player is killed by a lightning strike, the Minecraft:death message appears: "<player> was struck by lightning". This message does not display if the player was killed by the fire created by a lightning bolt.

Lightning Template:In changes color from white to orange at sunset, and appears brighter during the daytime.

Lightning may be manually summoned with the Template:Cmd command. It is summoned as an entity, and it can be referred to by Minecraft:commands or Minecraft:selectors.

File:SkeletonRiderGroup.png

A group of skeletal horsemen spawned during a thunderstorm.

File:Charged Creeper.gif

Charged creeper

File:Villager becoming Witch.gif

A villager gets struck by lightning.

Lightning is also spawned when a Minecraft:trident enchanted with Minecraft:Channeling is thrown and strikes a mob or a Minecraft:lightning rod during a thunderstorm.

On Minecraft:graphics settings lower than Fabulous!, Minecraft:water is invisible when seen through lightning.

Effects on mobs

A lightning strike affects certain mobs differently:

• Lightning may randomly spawn a "skeleton trap" horse with a chance of 0.75–1.5% chance on Easy, 1.5–4% on Normal, and 2.8125–6.75% on Hard, depending on the Minecraft:regional difficulty. A player triggers the trap by moving within 10 blocks of the horse, whereupon the horse transforms into four skeletal horsemen. A non-triggered trap horse despawns after 15 minutes.
• A Minecraft:pig struck by lightning turns into a Minecraft:zombified piglin.
• A Minecraft:creeper becomes charged.
• A Minecraft:villager gets replaced by a Minecraft:witch when Minecraft:lightning strikes within four blocks from it.
• A red Minecraft:mooshroom changes into a Minecraft:brown mooshroom and vice versa.
• A lightning strike on a Minecraft:turtle instantly kills it, and it drops 1 Minecraft:bowl instead of its normal drops.<ref>Template:Bug</ref>

On peaceful difficulty, pigs and villagers take damage normally.

Lightning mechanics

For each loaded chunk, every tick there is a Template:Frac chance of an attempted lightning strike during a thunderstorm. From this probability, if ≈201 chunks are loaded (from a radius of 128 blocks from the player to the center of each chunk) then 90% of the time up to 5 lightning strikes occur in the world each minute, with an average of approximately 2.4 lightning strikes each minute.

When lightning is to strike, random X and Z coordinates within the chunk are chosen, and the block just above the highest block that is liquid or obstructs movement is chosen for the lightning strike. If a Minecraft:lightning rod is nearby, it strikes the rod instead. Then if there are any living entities that can see the sky in a 3×h×3 region from 3 below the target block up to the world height, one such entity is selected at random and the lightning target is moved to the block the entity stands in.

The target block is checked again for the following conditions:

• Target block can see the sky.
• Rain (not snow) is falling in the target block.
  • Thus, lightning does not naturally strike within cold biomes or biomes where it does not rain.

If these conditions pass, lightning strikes.

When lightning strikes, all entities within a 6×12×6 region horizontally centered on the northwest corner of the target block with the bottom edge 3 below the target block are struck by lightning. Multiple passes are made over this region, so items dropped during an earlier pass may be destroyed during a subsequent pass; Minecraft:damage immunity usually prevents struck mobs from taking more than Template:Hp damage. Minecraft:Non-solid blocks (such as Minecraft:redstone, Minecraft:torches, and Minecraft:snow layers) are not directly affected by lightning. Since lightning is an entity with the ID "lightning_bolt", it can be summoned with /summon, although it cannot be ridden with /ride.

Thunder

Template:Redirect Thunder is a sound event that occurs every time lightning strikes. Every player within 160 thousand blocks and in the same dimension hears the thunder.

The ability to hear thunder affects multiplayer, as it is possible to hear lightning strike at someone else's base or use a modded Minecraft client to determine the direction of every strike in the world the player is in. Using the direction of strikes, it is possible to triangulate the coordinates of lightning strikes. Minecraft:Worried pandas are also scared during thunderstorms.

Because lightning bolts only happen in loaded chunks, this can be used to, for example, know where the other player is in a multiplayer world with only two players.

Lightning rods

File:Pigconversion-MadewithClipchamp-ezgif.com-crop.webp

Range of lightning conversion when hitting a lightning rod.

Lightning strikes within a radius of 128 blocks (Java Edition) or 64 blocks (Bedrock Edition) of a Minecraft:lightning rod are redirected to the rod, emitting a Minecraft:redstone signal. This can be used to prevent flammable structures from being struck by lightning, or intentionally direct lightning toward or away from mobs. During a thunderstorm, they emit spark-like particles, even in biomes where lightning doesn't strike.

Sounds

Template:Edition:

Template:Edition: Template:SoundTable

Data values

ID

Template:Edition: Template:ID table

Template:Edition: Template:ID table

Entity data

Lightning bolts have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Template:El: Template:Main

<section begin="entity data"/>

• Template:Nbt Entity data
  • Template:Nbt inherit/entity

<section end="entity data"/>

Template:El:

See Minecraft:Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

History

Trivia

• Lightning, unlike other weather effects, does not have an image file associated with it. It is an entity, coded directly into the game engine, allowing for dynamic, realistic lightning.
• Template:IN, lightning strikes closer to the player more often than in Java Edition, due to spawn distance limits.
• Because lightning is an entity, Minecraft:commands and Minecraft:command blocks can be used to kill and remove them from the world.

Gallery

Screenshots

• A thunderstorm during Minecraft:snowfall.
  A thunderstorm during Minecraft:snowfall.
• A thunderstorm at Minecraft:midnight.
  A thunderstorm at Minecraft:midnight.
• A thunderstorm during snowfall at midnight.
  A thunderstorm during snowfall at midnight.
• Lightning with Minecraft:Vibrant Visuals.
  Lightning with Minecraft:Vibrant Visuals.
• A thunderstorm in Minecraft:badlands, which allows hostile mobs to spawn under the sun.
  A thunderstorm in Minecraft:badlands, which allows hostile mobs to spawn under the sun.
• A thunderstorm in a dry biome at midnight, which causes Minecraft:stars to disappear.
  A thunderstorm in a dry biome at midnight, which causes Minecraft:stars to disappear.
• Thunderclouds appearing in a hot biome with no rain.
  Thunderclouds appearing in a hot biome with no rain.
• The void during a lightning strike.
  The void during a lightning strike.
• Witches fighting during a thunderstorm.
  Witches fighting during a thunderstorm.
• Forest lake during the thunderstorm.
  Forest lake during the thunderstorm.
• Lightning hitting a lightning rod and sending a redstone signal.
  Lightning hitting a lightning rod and sending a redstone signal.
• A lightning-struck lightning rod decreasing the oxidizing level of nearby copper blocks.
  A lightning-struck lightning rod decreasing the oxidizing level of nearby copper blocks.
• Lightning during snowfall, normally not possible but it creates a unique atmospheric effect.
  Lightning during snowfall, normally not possible but it creates a unique atmospheric effect.