The Google Weather Frog no longer wears a mask

Abner Li | Jul 20 2022 - 7:13 pm PT

Google’s adorable Weather Frog started wearing a face mask in August of 2020. Earlier this week, the protective equipment was removed from the character that appears in Google’s Search app on Android.

When introduced, the cloth masks — with multiple designs — were just drawn over existing illustrations that place the Weather Frog in various environments doing different activities. They all take place outdoors without anybody around.

It’s meant to roughly match the current condition at the location you’ve searched, and quite a delightful touch for being so prominent (swipe up to see additional information/stats) on Android. It’s also found on the Nest Hub as an experimental clock face, though the Smart Display Frog never wore a mask since it’s an animated experience and harder to change after the fact.

Froggy (official name) appears in the Today tab if you’re using the fullscreen Weather experience, which is powered by the Google app. The illustrations are also available when you search for weather (+ location) in the Google app, but slightly smaller though the scene is broader.

Google started removing the face mask from the Weather Frog at the start of this week, and it is fully gone as of Wednesday afternoon across all cities around the world that we looked up.