Here's When Your 'Animal Crossing' Island Will Become a Winter Wonderland Once Again
Published Dec. 2 2021, 1:00 p.m. ET
It's a magical time of year in Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Players all over will soon have snow covering their islands thanks to the changing seasons. With this comes seasonal DIY recipes, snowballs, snowpeople, and more! But when does it start to snow in the game? Here's when you need to break out your boots and beanies for your avatar.
When does it snow in 'Animal Crossing: New Horizons'?
In the Northern Hemisphere, the earliest that snow falls in ACNH is in mid to late November, according to Nookipedia. But you won't see it collect on the ground so soon. Your island will have its own blanket of snow by Dec. 11. Snow will continue to fall and crunch under your in-game knock-off Uggs until it melts sometime in February. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is all takes place between late May and late August.
Aside from the snow adding to the overall winter-wonderland theme of your island, there are other things to look out for like snowballs and different-sized snowflakes. Snowflakes come in regular and large sizes and will be labeled as such in your pockets and storage. But if you're looking at them closely, you can see that the larger one also has more details.
Using snowflakes in DIY crafts can also help your island become the icy fortress of your Frozen dreams. It's going to be our second winter since New Horizons was released, so now you have a second chance to get DIYs from 2020 like the Ice Flooring and Fallling-Snow Wall. But there are new ones to look out for this time around like the Frozen Mini Snowperson.
How do you get large snowflakes?
In the ACNH winter, regular-sized snowflakes will frequently flutter by and you can catch them with a net for your DIYs. But the large snowflakes are harder to come by and you'll need help from a snowy friend to get them. When you see snowballs on the ground, kick and roll them into bigger balls to make Snowpeople. To start off, all you have to do is kick and then roll the balls over the snow to make them bigger. Make them smaller by rolling them over paths or in the plaza.
If you make two of these snowballs of just the right sizes and stack the smaller one on top, you'll have made a perfect Snowperson. They will give you a large snowflake for doing a good job every day before it melts. You can also get a winter-themed DIY after you make them, but you can only get one per day.
Perfect Snowpeople can be tricky to make because there isn't a huge margin of error. But players have come up with tricks to help you get the perfect proportions.
According to Animal Crossing World, one method is to count the amount of times you roll a snowball to get the right sizes. For the body, roll one for 17 seconds, and for the head, 12 seconds. Keep in mind that when you find a snowball on your island, it will be too small to roll at first. Your avatar will kick it around about 13 times before they start pushing/rolling it around. Those kicks don't apply toward the seconds you have to count.
