Google Weather redesign rolls out to older Pixel phones [U]

With the Pixel Tablet and Fold, Google introduced a redesign of the Weather app, and other phones are now beginning to see it.

Update 10/19: Google looks to have rolled out the redesigned Weather experience to all modern Pixel phones in recent days. We’re seeing it on both the stable and beta versions of the Google app.

Like on the Tablet and Fold, the revamp is available out of the box on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. There are no changes to the experience, including how the homescreen icon is badged in the bottom-right corner.

Original 9/22: On phones, the new Google Weather goes from a three-tab layout to a single feed. It starts with a pill-shaped search bar that notes your current location and, on tap, shows a list of “Saved locations.”

The “Now” section retains the Froggy background, though it’s smaller than before with widescreen artwork used. You get the temperature and high/low at the left, with the condition and “Feels like” on the opposite side.

An “Hourly forecast” carousel that spans 24 hours is next. This is followed by a 10-day forecast that you can tap to enter a fullscreen UI that includes “Daily conditions” and “Hourly details.” You can quickly see other days from the top of this screen.

At the bottom of the main page is “Current conditions,” with cards for Wind, Humidity, UV Index, Pressure, and Sunrise & sunset. Lastly, you get Hourly details with Precipitation, Wind, and Humidity by the hour.

Under the hood, the most notable addition is “Google Nowcast” for rain, hail, and snow predictions in the US (at launch). These 12-hour forecasts are powered by Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor System (MRMS) and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as other sources.

This appears as a “Rain starting soon” card underneath the Now section when there’s active or upcoming precipitation. A timeline shows whether it will be a light, medium, or heavy downpour.

Over the past few days, some Pixel owners, including those on a 6a and 7 Pro, got the Google Weather redesign when launching from At a Glance or the widget. As of today, the experience is still powered by the Google app. This is a server-side rollout, and availability is pretty limited.

Similarly, Google reiterated to us this week that it will be “expanding the weather feature in the future and bringing it to more devices,” but it’s not sharing a timeline yet.