Why is there no longer snow in The Giver?

There is no snow in Jonas’s community because the community chose "Sameness," including climate control, to make life easier, safer, and more predictable.

The Giver explains this after he gives Jonas the memory of sledding down a snowy hill. Before that memory, Jonas does not even understand the words “downhill,” “sled,” or “snow,” which shows how completely his world has removed natural variety. After Jonas experiences the joy of cold air, snowflakes, and speeding downhill, The Giver tells him that the community gave up hills and snow deliberately. Hills made it harder to move goods, and snow made it harder to grow food, so the community made the climate controlled.

This practical decision fits the larger system of Sameness. The community tries to eliminate anything unpredictable: weather, color, strong emotion, deep memory, and individual choice. The Giver later explains the tradeoff: “Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. [...] We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.” Snow disappeared because comfort and efficiency mattered more to the community than beauty, play, and natural experience.

Jonas’s first snowy lets him feel what his society has lost. Notably, sledding is thrilling and fun, but later a sledding memory of falling and breaking a leg also brings pain. Snow therefore becomes part of the book’s larger pattern, in which the community avoids suffering by cutting itself off from joy as well.