It's cool to talk about the weather again thanks to the latest social media campaign doing the rounds from Waikato Civil Defence.

It has released a series of tweets and Facebook posts over the past few weeks, casting weather in a fun new light, and drawing great feedback from followers.

Monday's offering suggesting that you should only be worried about a snow warning on the Desert Road at 4am if you are "crazy enough to be up at 4am or you drive like an egg" is just one example of the deliberate campaign to reach people between the ages of 18 and 35.

These are the people identified as the most unprepared in the case of an emergency, and therefore more susceptible to disaster, emergency management and community resilience manager, Matthew Pryor, said.

Pryor, the man behind the posts, said for want of a better word, when s**t hits the fan Waikato Civil Defence will be able to reach them with messages and instructions on how to keep safe through social media.

Tech-savvy, Gen-Y and X were more complacent, Pryor said, simply because they believe it will never happen to them.



Pryor, 32, came on board in February this year and was tasked with increasing the base audience on social media.



He also works closely with community groups, local councils, marae and schools to ensure the right kind of information is available.



The team had been doing subtle "bits and pieces" leading up to National Disaster Week in October and Shake Out, a national earthquake drill.



"And I thought, I've got to get active on here and build up a base followers so that this going to be seen by a lot more people so that was the emphasis for it."



It was Pryor's role to make messages "more digestible" to the general public, and so far the response had been positive.

"We are government organisations so we can't really be too trial and error. It's an educated risk. I wouldn't say we are chucking things up and seeing what happens. It's definitely well thought through."

Social media was a powerful tool during a emergency and had proved its worth in June when a state of emergency was implemented in Whanganui after flooding left many homes in the area inaccessible.

Up to 250 people were evacuated from their homes in Whanganui by Civil Defence and more than 100 homes were unable to be reached due to water levels.

Pryor said social media was an invaluable tool during that time. "We actually managed to communicate with a whole bunch of communities that were isolated because the road that headed up the river was washed out and they had no telephone communication, just satellite internet.

The Ministry of Civil Defence was able to organise welfare and supply drops by helicopter via Facebook, he said.

And while it was great to know people were enjoying the campaign, it was really about getting people engaged in case of an emergency.

"It is to make sure people are aware of the need to be ready for a disaster and know where to get information from during a disaster. That's what we want.