Craterian thunderstorm



A Craterian thunderstorm is a storm witnessed on Crateria in Metroid: Zero Mission and Super Metroid. Despite its name, it is more accurately a lightning storm.

The storms begin and end at different points in the games. When visiting the Landing Site in Zero Mission prior to Mother Brain's defeat, the sky is clear. It can thus be inferred that the destruction of Tourian polluted the atmosphere and caused the torrential downpour of Acid Rain that is seen upon returning to the Landing Site after, with occasional lightning strikes. However, the prequel manga implies that Crateria has always had Acid Rain. It is not harmful to Samus due to the Chozo DNA she was infused with at a young age.



Rain can also be observed outside of the Space Pirate Mother Ship after Samus crashes her Gunship near it, but it is not accompanied by lightning. By the time Samus obtains the Fully Powered Suit, the storms outside the Mother Ship will have stopped. However, they continue at the Landing Site indefinitely.

In Super Metroid, Samus lands on Crateria in the middle of a thunderstorm. Likely due to hardware limitations, there is no sound effect for the rain in this game (unlike Zero Mission), but blasts of lightning can be heard in the foreboding music that plays here. The storm stops after Samus obtains the Varia Suit, and are not seen for the rest of the game.