Powder Snow

This article is about the block. For the bucket, see Powder Snow Bucket. For other uses, see Snow (disambiguation).

Powder Snow

Renewable	Yes‌[Java Edition only] No‌[Bedrock Edition only]
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tools	Any tool
Blast resistance	?
Hardness	0.1‌[Java Edition only] 0.2‌[Bedrock Edition only]
Luminant	No
Transparent	Yes
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

Powder snow is a trap block that, in Java Edition, can be obtained from cauldrons.

Obtaining

In Java Edition, a cauldron in a snowy biome will fill up with powder snow when it is snowing. Powder snow can then be picked up from this cauldron with an empty bucket.

Using a powder snow bucket will place powder snow. Placed powder snow can be picked up again with an empty bucket.

Breaking

Powder snow does not drop anything when mined, even with Silk Touch, and tools do not speed up mining.

Block	Hardness	Breaking time
		Default
Powder Snow[JE only]	0.1	0.15
Powder Snow[BE only]	0.2	1

Powder snow will be broken by water or lava.

Usage

The frosty vignette when a player's head is within powder snow.

Entities (except rabbits, endermites and silverfish in Java Edition) fall through powder snow without taking fall damage and move much slower in it, similar to cobwebs. Powder snow does not cause suffocation damage.

Mobs, armor stands or players wearing leather boots do not fall through powder snow. In this case the snow behaves as scaffolding when the player sneaks or crouches while on the block and jumps while inside of the block. In addition, fall damage will be taken when falling on powder snow from a large height.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

In Java Edition, powder snow extinguishes any entities that are on fire if they go inside of it. Players can use powder snow in the Nether.

Freezing

Freezing hearts when the player is submerged in powder snow.

When an entity is inside a powder snow block, they will begin to freeze, taking damage.

When a player is submerged, they will see a frosty vignette slowly fade in at the sides of the screen and the FOV will slowly decrease. After fifteen seconds (300 game ticks), the player's hearts will change to a cyan frosty texture (), and the player will begin taking damage at a rate of 1 HP every three seconds (60 game ticks). If the player leaves the powder snow block, the vignette will slowly fade away. When a player is frozen, they will move slower than usual until the vignette fully fades away. This is controlled by the "TicksFrozen" data tag, which increases by 1 every tick (to a maximum of 300) for an entity within the powder snow block. It will only decrease when the entity leaves the powder snow block, at which point it will decrease at a rate of 2 per tick. This is currently not a separate effect when used with commands such as /effect give freezing, and does not have it is own unique art, particles or potion.

Wearing any piece of leather armor will stop the freezing effect and damage. This applies to other entities that can wear humanoid-oriented armor, such as zombies. However, horses will not receive freezing resistance from leather horse armor, which has been confirmed to be completely intended.

Cold-sensitive mobs, namely blazes and striders, are not immediately damaged by powder snow. Mobs which inhabit cold biomes (as well as snow golems, which are themselves made almost completely of snow) are not immune to freezing.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block or grabbing the block with a bucket	block.powder_snow.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	?	?	?
	None	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.powder_snow.fall	None	?	?	?
	Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	block.powder_snow.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	?	?	?
	Block placed	Blocks	Placing the block (unused, as it can only be placed from a bucket)	block.powder_snow.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	0.83	1.3	?
	Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	block.powder_snow.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	?	?	?
	Player freezes	Blocks	Getting damaged by freezing	entity.player.hurt_freeze	subtitles.entity.player.freeze_hurt	?	?	?
	Bucket empties	Blocks	Placing the block with a bucket	item.bucket.empty_powder_snow	subtitles.item.bucket.empty	?	?	?
	Bucket fills	Players	Grabbing the block with a bucket	item.bucket.fill_powder_snow	subtitles.item.bucket.fill	?	?	?

Bedrock Edition: ^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Source‌[upcoming: BE 1.16.200]	Description	Namespaced ID	Volume	Pitch
?	?	Breaking the block	dig.snow	?	0.8
?	?	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.snow	?	?
?	?	Mining the block	hit.snow	?	0.5
?	?	Jumping from the block	jump.snow	?	?
?	?	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.snow	?	?
?	?	Walking on the block	step.snow	?	?
?	?	Placing the block	use.snow	?	0.8

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Block tags (JE)	Item form?	Translation key
Powder Snow	powder_snow	inside_step_sound_block	No	block.minecraft.powder_snow

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Powder Snow	powder_snow	?	tile.powder_snow.name

History

October 3, 2020					Powder snow was mentioned at Minecraft Live 2020, but no images were shown.
Upcoming Java Edition
1.17		20w46a			Added powder snow.
		20w48a			Wearing any piece of leather armor now stops the freezing effect.
					Added the freezeDamage gamerule, which stops entities from taking freezing damage if it is set to false.
					The snow_step_sound_blocks block tag was renamed to inside_step_sound_block.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
1.16.200		beta 1.16.200.52			Added powder snow via Experimental Gameplay.

Issues

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

Trivia

• "Snowier Snow" was announced to be part of the Mountains biome in the biome vote at MINECON Live 2019. Powder Snow is referred to as "Snowier Snow" by the community and the Mojang devs.
• This block arrived in each version in a different way (to Java as a bucket and to Bedrock as a block) and with different utilities
• As of snapshot 20w46a, this block does not evaporate in the Nether.

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]