SNOWFLAKE GOOGLE DOODLE: ‘World record’ largest flake drops in on the logo

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IF YOU BELIEVE the old saying, no two snowflakes are alike.

And if you believe legend and lore and Guinness World Records, there’s a single monstrous snowflake that’s the least alike of all.

Google’s homepage “Doodle” on Saturday celebrates the 125th anniversary of the largest recorded snowflake — a stone-cold behemoth said to be 15 inches in diameter. The freakishly massive flake reportedly drifted — or perhaps plummeted — to earth at Montana’s Fort Keogh in 1887.

(The snowflakes in that Jan. 28 storm, according to a New York Times piece a few years back, were described by a rancher as “larger than milk pans.”)

In Google’s stylish new animation, a gargantuan flake falls from the sky over several seconds, settling next to a cow and sending a couple of birds flitting away. (The snowflake also becomes the middle “O” in Google, with a shadowed tower representing the “L” and a leafless tree sitting in for the ”G.)

The Google team has been having particular fun playing in the snow this season. Last month, its artists unveiled an “Easter egg” of a search trick: When you typed “Let it snow” in the search bar, flakes drifted downward until your screen frosted over.

So even if you’re having a warmer-than-usual January, Google continues to deliver the wintry mix.

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Comic Riffs’ TOP TEN ‘GOOGLE DOODLE’ ANIMATIONS EVER :

1. PAC-MAN: VIDEO-GAME GOOGLE

2. GOOGLE BALLS: THE MYSTERY DOODLE

3. JOHN LENNON: IMAGINE THIS DOODLE

4. MARTHA GRAHAM: THE DANCING DOODLE

5. FREDDIE MERCURY: THE MUSIC VIDEO

6. JIM HENSON: THE CLICKABLE MUPPETS

7. ART CLOKEY: THE “GUMBY DOODLE”

8. JULES VERNE: THE DEEP-SEA DOODLE

9. STANISLAW LEM: THE ANIMATED SCI-FI GAME

10. ALEXANDER CALDER: THE SCULPTURAL DOODLE

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