Weather

Weather is an aesthetic gameplay aspect in that determines whether an area is sunny or has precipitation on the current day. Although all areas can be sunny, warmer ones have rainfall and colder ones have snowfall. Compared to sunny weather, rainy weather has darker lighting, faint splashes on the ground, and makes surfaces glisten, and snowy weather makes faint snow fall from the sky. Weather does not affect underground sections of areas, nor does it change throughout the day.

In fanon games, weather is greatly expanded upon and often coincides with temperature. It has various intensities and can change throughout the day, sandstorms can occur in deserts, acid rain can occur, hail can fall, and winds of varying strength can blow through areas. Furthermore, rainfall can cause parts of an area to flood as well as result in the formation of water droplets or streams that can prove dangerous to inapt Pikmin, and snowfall can cause snow to pile up in various locations.

=In fanon games=

In Pikmin 3.9
Weather is a gameplay aspect in Pikmin 3.9 that can change an area's native wildlife and even its landscape but can only occur after the tutorial is completed. Some enemies can only be found in certain weather conditions.

In Pikmin V
In Pikmin V, weather is a mostly aesthetic environmental factor that changes throughout the day. At the beginning of each day, a weather condition is chosen with weighted randomness, and after each quarter of the day, another check is made to see if the weather changes. Very few weather types affect gameplay; those that do are listed as extreme weather, are rarer than normal weather, and only change navigation through an area rather than granting or restricting access to anywhere completely. Extreme weather always changes to another weather afterward. There is an option in the settings menu to disable the effects of extreme weather, should a player want to avoid the random element.

The climate of an area determines which types of weather can occur. In Story Mode, each region is assigned a climate, while in other modes, it is determined per map. The sunny or cloudy and overcast conditions appear in all areas that can have weather, so they are not listed.

There are three times in Story Mode when the weather is overridden:
 * The weather is locked to sunny or cloudy on Day 1.
 * The first day in Clear Creek will always start with a snow storm.
 * After rescuing Louie and getting the Drake's hydraulics system, the ships crash into the Continental Plain, which has been affected by a radioactive storm and has no weather. This is reflected in the game's files as a climate change.

In Pikmin: Distant Planet
Weather is an important gameplay factor in Pikmin: Distant Planet. Once the Weather Gauge is obtained, which is early on in the adventure, a selected area's weather can be monitored by the indicator displayed on the world map, above the area's preview, and in the form of a dial with a needle. The indicator does not display the effects of any weather type, but the weather guide can be used to learn about them. Some areas have conditions that rarely change except on certain days. For instance, Cloaking Field, the second area, is usually misty, but a hot day could clear the mist, perhaps even drying up small bodies of water formed by mist in certain places. Often, weather is crucial to investigate different places as it may open or close routes through the area. Weather may even affect the underground territory beneath an area.

The Weather Gauge features a colored portion that transitions, from left to right, from yellow to gray to blue in a smooth gradient. The yellow section measures how sunny an area is while the blue section measures the severity of the current weather; the farther the needle is to one side, the more intense the weather. The gray middle section determines that the area is neither sunny nor rainy and is overcast, sometimes with fog or mist, and has slightly cooler water, decreasing the likelihood of encountering insects. On hot days, small puddles of water formed by mist evaporate, possibly granting access to new paths, and normally colder bodies of water warm, sometimes attracting large quantities of insects; in areas that are already hot, the sun's blazing heat may cause foliage to burn, Pikmin to lose energy quickly, and certain surfaces such as cement to burn anything that attempts to walk across it. On sunny days, the weather is pleasant but may attract insects. On rainy days, water levels are higher than usual, opening new paths and closing others, and raindrops that can endanger all but Blue Pikmin that aren't under cover; on stormy days, rainfall is heavy, flooding is frequent, floodwaters can flow in various directions, and lightning strikes.