Rain and thunder ambience

The built-in storm is two loops and one scheduled layer. Why it is built that way, and how to take the thunder back under your control.

The built-in Thunderstorm is two loops and one scheduled layer: heavy rain at 65%, a thunderstorm recording at 55% over it, and wind gusts every twenty seconds. The thunder is a loop rather than scheduled strikes, which is the right default — a recorded storm already has believable spacing in it, and spacing is the hard part.

It ships built in as Thunderstorm — 3 layers, 3 on to start. Open it in the app, or build it yourself from the recipe below.

What it sounds like

Rain is the easiest ambience to run and the easiest to overdo. One good loop at a modest level and you are finished, because real rain has no events in it. Resist adding anything.

Thunder is the opposite: it is all timing. Thunder on a regular beat is instantly fake, and thunder that cracks three times in ten seconds and then nothing for a minute is exactly what a storm does. The built-in gets there by not scheduling it at all — the second loop is a recording of a real storm, so the spacing is whatever the weather did that day. It is the least clever solution and it beats anything you would dial in.

Which leaves one scheduled layer, the gusts, and that is on purpose too. The gusts are what stop two loops sounding like two loops.

The recipe, dial by dial

This is the environment as it ships. Every layer is the same kind of thing — one sound from the library and a set of dials — so there is nothing special about which slot a sound sits in. The names are only names.

Layer	Sound	How often	Wander	Volume	Distance	Reverb	Echo
Rain	Heavy rain	loop	—	65%	close	off	off
Thunder	Thunderstorm	loop	—	55%	close	off	off
Wind	Wind gusts	every ~20 s	70%	50%	nearby	medium	1 bounce

Master volume 80%. Every number above is read out of the environment that ships in the app, and printed in the words the app prints beside each slider.

Rain — 65%, and the only thing playing for most of any given minute. Steady, unremarkable, and the reason the scene can run for an hour.
Heavy rain
Thunder — A loop, not scheduled events, at 55%. A recorded storm brings its own spacing; dialling in believable gaps by hand is the thing people get wrong.
Thunderstorm
Wind — Every twenty seconds, nearby. The one scheduled layer, and what keeps the two loops from reading as a pair of loops.
Wind gusts

What each dial does is covered once, properly, in Environments & layers.

Boards to load with it

The environment is the place; boards are the things that happen in it. These three ship built in and suit this one:

Alarms & Signals — the bell nobody can hear over the rain
Doors & Traps — shutters, and a door that will not stay shut
Druid — if the storm is somebody's fault

Load them, then press + New scene and the environment and the boards come back together next week in one tap. Scenes covers that.

Make it yours

Thunder you control

Swap the Thunder layer to an event set and you get to time the strikes yourself. The library carries Thunder strike, Thunder, close, Distant thunder, Thunder, deep rumble and Storm rolling in. Set the interval around twenty seconds and the wander at least 70%, or the regularity will give it away inside a minute.

Just rain

Turn the thunder layer off, or load Rain, which ships on its own. Steady rain is the most useful background in the library: it works under almost any scene and never pulls focus.

The storm arriving

Start on Storm rolling in at very far, about one every ninety seconds, and bring the distance and the interval down by hand across the session. The weather turns while the party is doing something else.

None of this is destructive: the built-in environments cannot be overwritten. Change what you like, and press Save a copy as… when it sounds right.

The recordings

Every sound this environment uses, and who recorded it. Most of the library is public domain; the Creative Commons Attribution recordings are credited here because that is what the licence asks for. The full list is on Sounds & licensing.

Heavy rain — Heavy Rain Sound - Inu Etc.mp3 by inuetc (CC0)
Thunderstorm — Thunderstorm 1.WAV by Sandermotions (CC0)
Wind gusts — Wind Gust by crashoverride6 (CC0)
Wind gusts — gust of wind.wav by Tony B kksm (CC0)
Wind gusts — Winter Winds by UrsaDaBear (CC0)
Wind gusts — wind_gust_short_sqeeeek.wav by sqeeeek (CC0)
Wind gusts — wind.wav by Ashtalon (CC0)

Open Thunderstorm in Thaumaturgy — it is free, there is nothing to install, and nothing to sign up for.

Updated 24 October 2026