00:00Thomas Hinterdorfer is a self-described weather nerd.
00:06Behind the scenes we sit here and we chat about weather for 12, 14, 16 hours a day.
00:11From his spare bedroom near Toowoomba, he comes up with forecasts
00:15for one of Australia's largest social media weather pages, Kigan Storm Chasing.
00:20We try and use the resources we've got, whether it's visuals on the ground
00:24or radar information, because radar is becoming much more accurate now.
00:28We try really hard to use those tools available to us to accurately call weather.
00:32Higgins has more than a million followers
00:35and is one of many social media weather services to evolve in recent years.
00:42These pages not only share forecasts, but also videos of wild weather.
00:47Anthony Violi runs a service catered to farmers.
00:50I've got a farming background, so I've always been interested in weather of course,
00:54as most farmers are.
00:55Basically all farmers need to make decisions well ahead of time.
00:58So for next year you need to be planning already now.
01:01Consumer experts say these pages, while informative, are also a form of entertainment.
01:08It is beyond just a weather forecast.
01:15Consumers check forecasts from multiple sources.
01:18My father, and he is a farmer, he will get weather forecasts from four sources
01:23because otherwise it costs him a lot of money.
01:25Queensland has already been hit by heavy rain and more is expected over summer.
01:29The State Government says residents should check official sources
01:33like the Bureau of Meteorology for the latest forecasts and warnings.
01:37Refer to those key institutions like the Queensland Police Service
01:41and the Queensland Fire Department for their timely information.
01:44It's probably better than hearing it third-hand off a random TikTok account.
01:49Some storm chasers say they feel a responsibility to their audience not to exaggerate forecasts.
01:55We also understand that we've got a big public role, obviously with the amount of people that follow us.
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