Snover Evolves at Level 40 and Summons Snow the Instant It Enters Battle: Snow Warning Is the Only Auto-Weather Ability on a Grass-Type Pokemon

Every other Pokemon that can summon weather the instant it steps onto the field is built from Fire, Water, Ground, or Rock. Torkoal sets sun. Pelipper sets rain. Hippowdon sets sand. Then there’s Snover’s evolution line — a Grass-type — carrying the exact same class of ability, and nothing else that shares its typing has ever gotten one. That’s not a trivia footnote if you’re deciding whether Snover is worth the grind to level 40, because Snow Warning changes what Abomasnow does on a team more than almost any single ability changes a Pokemon’s role.

This guide checks every auto-weather ability holder the games have ever had — Drought, Drizzle, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning — cross-references it against Abomasnow’s own stat lines, corrects a couple of numbers that get botched across competing wikis and AI-summarized fetches (a wrong Fighting-type resistance, a phantom third ability, an outdated hail-damage fraction), and works out exactly what changes once the Mega Evolution’s brutal Speed cut enters the picture.

Verified against Pokemon Scarlet & Violet and Pokemon Legends Z-A, current as of July 2026. Values change with future patches — recheck a Pokedex source before a ranked tournament if you’re reading this months later.

Quick Start: Snover to Abomasnow

• Catch or hatch a Snover — Grass/Ice type, no rare spawn conditions, no gender lock.
• Level it to 40. That’s the entire requirement — no stone, no trade, no time-of-day gate, in any game the line has appeared in.[1]
• Check which ability slot it evolved with: Snow Warning (standard, sets weather on switch-in) or Soundproof (hidden, blocks sound-based moves and does nothing else).[1][2]
• Decide base Abomasnow (a cheap, always-available weather setter) vs. Mega Abomasnow (Mega Stone-gated wallbreaker) before you build a moveset — they play like two different Pokemon.
• Patch its Fighting and Steel-type coverage gaps with a teammate before taking it into a raid or ranked match — see the weakness table below.

How Snover Evolves Into Abomasnow

Snover evolves into Abomasnow at level 40 — a flat level threshold with no held item, no trade, and no regional exception. That has held true in every mainline game the line has appeared in, from Diamond and Pearl through Legends Z-A.[1]

The evolution method isn’t what earns this line its reputation. What matters is what levels 1 through 39 hide. Base Snover carries one of the worse offensive stat lines among Grass/Ice-types: 62 Attack, 62 Special Attack, and a genuinely poor 40 Speed on a 334 base stat total.[1] Training a Snover feels bad in the moment — the entire payoff is back-loaded into the level 40 jump, where the total climbs to 494 (92 Attack, 92 Special Attack, 60 Speed).[2] Competitively that’s a mediocre spread on raw numbers. The numbers were never the point.

The ability carries across the evolution unchanged: Snow Warning is Snover’s and Abomasnow’s standard ability in every generation the species has existed, with Soundproof as the sole hidden-ability alternative.[1][2] A handful of older fan wikis and even some AI-summarized wiki fetches list a third “Cacophony” ability on this line — that assignment doesn’t exist on any official Snover or Abomasnow release in any generation. Snow Warning and Soundproof are the only two abilities this species has ever had.

Where to find one depends on the game. Snover has always spawned in snowy, high-altitude biomes rather than generic grass routes — Mt. Coronet’s snowy sections in the Sinnoh games, Route 17 in X/Y, the Crown Tundra and Isle of Armor’s colder corners in Sword & Shield, and Paldea’s Glaseado Mountain (also available via 3-star Tera Raids and the Indigo Disk’s Polar Biome Terarium) in Scarlet & Violet.[1] That pattern has held across every mainline appearance so far — “cold, elevated terrain,” never a generic grass route — which tracks with a Grass/Ice-type that needs freezing temperatures to make thematic sense.

Snow Warning Is the Only Auto-Weather Ability on a Grass-Type Pokemon

Four abilities set weather automatically the instant their holder switches in, with no move slot spent: Drought (sun), Drizzle (rain), Sand Stream (sandstorm), and Snow Warning (snow). Line up every Pokemon that has ever had one of the four and a pattern falls out immediately — every holder is Fire, Water, Ground, or Rock typed, except one line.

Every holder of the other three abilities is built from a type that fits its weather thematically — Fire sets sun, Water sets rain, Ground and Rock set sand. Snover and Abomasnow are the only Grass-type Pokemon that have ever been assigned any of the four auto-weather abilities, in any generation.[4][6][7][8][10] That’s a meaningful mismatch: Grass is one of the types weather usually works against rather than for. Grass-types take chip damage from Sand Stream and get nothing from the other three conditions. Abomasnow is the one Grass-type that sets its own preferred weather instead of waiting to get hurt by someone else’s — and if you’re running an Ice-type teammate, that weather is actively working for your team, not just Abomasnow itself (see below).

What Snow Actually Does in Battle (It’s Not the Old Hail)

If your last memory of this ability is from Sword & Shield or earlier, the mechanic changed completely at Generation 9. Through Generation 8, Snow Warning summoned Hail, which chipped every non-Ice-type Pokemon on the field for exactly 1/16 of its max HP at the end of each turn — a weak, mostly cosmetic effect that made Hail infamous as the worst weather condition in the game.[9][11]

Hail doesn’t exist anymore. Since Scarlet & Violet, Snow Warning summons Snow instead, and Snow does something structurally different: it deals zero chip damage to anyone, and instead gives every Ice-type Pokemon on the field a flat +50% boost to their Defense stat.[9] Two more effects ride along with it — Blizzard bypasses its accuracy check entirely while Snow is active (it simply can’t miss), and Aurora Veil, a move that normally requires Hail/Snow to even be selectable, becomes available and sets a 5-turn dual Attack/Special Defense screen that keeps running even after the Snow itself ends.[9]

The weather itself lasts 5 turns from a Snow Warning switch-in, extendable to 8 turns if the Pokemon is holding an Icy Rock.[9] That’s a genuine team-support tool now, not a nuisance mechanic — a Snow Warning Abomasnow isn’t just protecting itself, it’s turning every Ice-type ally into a harder wall and every Blizzard on the team into a guaranteed hit for the next several turns.

Abomasnow’s Type Chart: A 4x Fire Weakness Riding on 7 Total Weak Points

Grass/Ice is one of the least forgiving defensive type combinations in the game, and the math is straightforward once you multiply the two charts together instead of trusting a pre-merged summary (several auto-generated ones online get this wrong — one even claims Abomasnow resists Fighting, which is backwards). Grass alone is weak to Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, and Bug; Ice alone is weak to Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel. Stack them and Fire hits twice from both halves — a 4x weakness — while six more types land a clean 2x.

Seven total weak points on one Pokemon is a lot to cover with a single teammate, so Abomasnow almost never wants to switch directly into a hit — it wants to come in on a predicted switch or behind a pivot move, set its weather, and get out or attack immediately. The Ice-type half of its kit isn’t doing it any defensive favors here either; it’s the same Ice typing that gives Alolan Sandshrew and Sandslash their own rough defensive profile, and the pattern holds across most Ice-type Pokemon — the type is far better on offense (Blizzard, Ice Beam) than on defense.

Mega Abomasnow Trades Speed for Raw Power

Mega Evolving turns Abomasnow into one of the slowest attackers in the game on purpose. Its base stat total climbs from 494 to 594, and almost every point of that goes into offense and bulk — Attack and Special Attack both jump to 132, Defense and Special Defense both jump to 105.[2][3] Speed does the opposite: it gets cut from 60 to 30, a straight halving, and 30 base Speed is slow enough that Mega Abomasnow loses the speed tie to the overwhelming majority of the Pokemon it will ever face.[2][3]

That’s a deliberate design choice, not an oversight — the same trade Game Freak has made on several bulky Mega Evolutions, including Mega Ampharos, which gains a fourth weakness on top of losing Speed relative to its base form. Mega Abomasnow’s answer to its own Speed problem is built into its own ability: Snow Warning still triggers the instant it Mega Evolves, so a team built around Trick Room can flip that 30 base Speed from a liability into an advantage, moving Mega Abomasnow first specifically because it’s slow. Outside of a Trick Room shell, the honest read is that Mega Abomasnow is a bulky wallbreaker that has to switch in safely (or come in on a slower opponent) rather than a Pokemon that outpaces anything on its own.

One scope note before you go looking for the Mega Stone: Abomasite doesn’t exist in Scarlet & Violet at all. It’s a Legends Z-A-only item, purchasable for ₽50,000 at the Stone Emporium once Main Mission 10 is cleared, and the save file caps you at one copy.[12] If you’re playing Scarlet & Violet or its DLC, base Abomasnow is the only version of this Pokemon you have access to — plan the weather-support role accordingly rather than assuming the Mega upgrade is always on the table.

Who Should Actually Train This Line

Decision Tree: Base Abomasnow or Mega Abomasnow?

• Want a cheap weather-support piece that opens a slot for a faster Ice-type attacker? Run base Abomasnow, teach it a pivot move, and don’t worry about EVs.
• Building around Trick Room? Mega Abomasnow is one of the better payoffs in the format — its Speed cut is a genuine asset there, not a drawback.
• Want a Pokemon that’s simply fast and hard-hitting? Neither form of Abomasnow is the answer — its identity is bulk plus weather utility, not speed. Look elsewhere in your box.
• Just want the strongest possible single Pokemon regardless of role? Abomasnow was never built to compete with the game’s headline-grabbing options — see our pseudo-legendary rankings for that tier of raw power instead.

FAQ

Is Abomasnow worth using competitively, or is it just a novelty?

It’s a real, if narrow, competitive tool rather than a gimmick — the deciding factor is whether your team actually has Ice-type attackers or a Trick Room core to capitalize on the Snow it sets. Without either, you’re using a bulky Grass/Ice-type with seven weaknesses for a weather effect nobody on your team benefits from, which is a worse pick than almost any dedicated wallbreaker.

Should I bother catching a Snover with Soundproof instead of Snow Warning?

Almost never. Soundproof blocks sound-based moves (Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Disarming Voice) and does nothing else — it doesn’t set weather, doesn’t boost anything, and Abomasnow’s kit doesn’t lean on sound-move immunity as a niche the way, say, a dedicated Sound-immune wall might. Snow Warning is correct for essentially every use case, including casual play.

Does Mega Abomasnow’s Speed drop make it unusable outside Trick Room?

Not unusable, but it does mean you’re accepting that Mega Abomasnow moves last against almost everything unless you support it. Behind a slow pivot or a paralysis/Icy Wind-style Speed-control move, it can still function as a one-time wallbreaker that eats a hit and swings back hard — the Trick Room framing is the strongest use case, not the only one.

Is it still called “Hail” in current games, or is that outdated?

Outdated as of Generation 9. If a guide, video, or forum post from 2022 or earlier calls Abomasnow’s weather “Hail” and describes it chipping away at your own team’s HP, that’s describing the Sword & Shield-era mechanic that no longer exists. Since Scarlet & Violet and Legends Z-A, the same ability sets Snow, which drops the self-damage entirely and instead boosts Ice-type Defense — a straight upgrade for anyone actually building around it, and a common source of outdated advice from older content that never got corrected.

Sources

• Pokemon Database — Snover Pokedex
• Pokemon Database — Abomasnow Pokedex
• Serebii.net — Abomasnow SV Pokedex (cross-verification, no separate inline link used)
• Pokemon Database — Snow Warning
• Pokemon Database — Vanilluxe Pokedex
• Pokemon Database — Drought
• Pokemon Database — Sand Stream
• Pokemon Database — Drizzle
• Bulbapedia — Snow (weather)
• Game8 — Mega Froslass, Pokemon Legends Z-A (verification only, no separate inline link used)
• Bulbapedia — Hail (weather condition)
• Game8 — How to Get Abomasite Mega Stone

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.