It only takes a cursory look at social media to see that Australians love a good weather event — be it heatwave, cold snap, cyclone or bushfire — social media goes into meltdown over the weather.

Everyone wants to know what to expect ahead of time and the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is the first port of call.

With more than 1.5 billion views of the BOM website in the 2016-17 financial year, and more than 35 million views of its weather app, the bureau is looking for new ways to talk to Australians about the weather.

Senior meteorologist Adam Morgan said the bureau had started running a series of live question and answer sessions called #AskBOM using Facebook Live.

The BOM created a list of the top 10 questions they get asked about the weather and are using social media to answer them.

The questions are:

1. How is temperature measured? 2. What is "feels like" temperature? 3. How does a weather radar work? 4. What is that cloud? 5. What is a thunderstorm? 6. What is an east coast low? 7. What is a cold front? 8. How do tropical cyclones get their names? 9. What is an aurora? 10. What causes a red sky at sunrise and sunset?

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BOM finding new ways to talk about the weather

"The way people consume information these days is much more immediate, so organisations like the BOM can't rely on people just to go to our website to find information anymore, we have to deliver it in different ways," Mr Morgan said.

"We did an #askBOM Facebook Live recently on 'What is a cold front' and we had about 20,000 views and got lots of questions.

"Our website will always contain the official forecast and warnings, but more and more we need to deliver that information via social media as well, in real time."

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Mr Morgan said the explanation on how the weather radar works is the page most visited.

"It is the most popular page on our website — everyone likes to see what is happening when it's raining or there is a thunderstorm around, so they want to know how the radar works," he said.

The bureau's social media following has also grown exponentially in recent years.

BOM now has 750,000 followers on Facebook and its nine Twitter accounts attract an audience of 500,000 people.

Mr Morgan said questions about the weather varied depending on where people live.

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"For some people, it might be about what sort of clothes to wear today or, 'Do I take an umbrella to work?', but for some people in other parts of Australia, the weather can have a huge impact on your safety or your wellbeing, for instance in thunderstorm or cyclone season," he said.

"Everyone needs to know about the weather or wants to know about the weather and I think because it affects everyone, it's a really easy topic of conversation."