Weather is a prominent feature and decoration in Jailbreak, added in the 2017 Fall Update.
Overview
It simulates weather in real-life in the game, and creates a more realistic and appealing environment in Jailbreak. Weather conditions of Jailbreak includes rainstorms, thunderstorms, snowstorms, and auroras. Sandstorms were also planned, but were scrapped due to causing too much lag to nearby players.
Rainstorms
Rainstorms randomly occur in Jailbreak. When it starts raining, 2 layers of clouds cover up the sky. During rainstorms, vehicles are locked in a temporary drift mode, meaning that a car's handling will significantly decrease; this is to simulate the ground being slippery. Aerial and aquatic vehicles are not affected by this weather. In September 2020, an unknown audio played during rainstorms, but has since been patched.
The in-game time stops when a rainstorm starts, which last around four minutes in real time.
Snow
Snow replaces rain and only occurs while the map is snowy, which happens during Jailbreak Winter Updates. Snowstorms will only appear when the rest of the map is snow-themed. While snowing, the ground is slippery, greatly reducing the handling of land vehicles.
If a snowstorm occurs, no sound will be heard. Strangely, rain would still occur during the 2018 Winter Update, but snowstorms occurred during the other Winter Updates.
Thunderstorms
Thunderstorms are identical to rainstorms, with the exception of the presence of lightning. Lightning will randomly strike around the map and create a fire where it struck. If it hits a player, the lightning will deal heavy damage to them and will create a fire, also damaging players in close vicinity. However, getting struck by lightning is an extremely rare occasion. Lightning used to not affect players indoors, however, since March 8, 2020, players could get hit by lightning even if they are sheltered. This was patched as of the first day of the 5 Days 5 Vehicles Update.
Even if players get over the rain clouds via an aerial vehicle, it will still appear as if it is raining. This is simply due to Roblox physics which cannot be fixed. The only buildings that extend over the clouds are the Radio Tower and the large tower which used to be the Penthouse apartment in the Rising City near the Hospital.
Auroras
Auroras, or Northern Lights, were a weather pattern in Jailbreak, released in the 2020 Winter Update, and have appeared in every winter map since. It was first spotted in a 2020 Winter Update teaser video on badcc's YouTube channel. After the winter map teaser images were released, the Auroras appear in the sky throughout the whole in-game day. In the Dogs Update, most auroras were removed. However, some auroras remained in the fake mountains, because there was still snow on top of them. They have since been removed in the Homes Update, but returned temporarily for every winter update since.
Sandstorms (Scrapped)
Sandstorms was teased to be added in the Military Update, though they were never added. The developers said sandstorms will happen in the desert when rain and thunderstorms happen. They were removed due to lag and frame-rate drops near the sandstorms.
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Trivia
- In the 2017 Winter Update, rainstorms were replaced with snow. The snow changed back to rain in the Rocket Fuel update.
- In the 1B Visits Update, when it rained, confetti would rain out of the sky in celebration of 1 Billion visits that Jailbreak received, though the rain audio was still used.
- There was a common glitch where the rain would fall through solid objects, including the map and buildings. This has been patched by Badimo.
- Weather was used for an advantage during the Ready Player One Event, since the original event required players to drive a vehicle into the orange house in the Mountainside Town at a specific time. Since weather stops in-game time, the weather allowed players more time to perform the above procedure.
- Lightning is solid, meaning players cannot go through it.
- As of the Spoilers and Wings Customization update, when the rain starts, the sky, along with the lightning, were made to look more realistic.
- As of the same update, roads would become more slippery during rain, making cars harder to control.
- As of the Fire Update, lightning can start a fire when it strikes the ground, building, or elevated object. These fires would burn for 1 minute before disappearing.
- As of May 17th, 2020, rain clouds are now 3D and the change between day and night has become more gradual.
- In the April 2020 Live event, when the nuke hit the ground, the whole map started raining and lightning struck around the map, though it would not deal any damage to players. A tornado also occurred, destroying the Rising City.
- Around the end of August 2020, music would play when it was raining. This was because Roblox moderated Jailbreak's rain audio, and put in a music audio as a placeholder. It was later fixed in the Balance Update.
- The dark cloud over the Mountainside Town when the Volcano erupted before the Town Revamp update uses a 2D cloud texture, instead of the 3D clouds during rainstorms.
- Previously, lightning could kill players instantly. This was later changed to not kill but badly damage players, due to complaints of players dying and losing all their items.
- The Passenger Train used to appear more frequently during the rain or snow, but no longer does as of the Fall 2023 update.
- The Mansion used to always open during rain or snow, but no longer does as of a miscellaneous update.