Storm chasers and rural Australians with an eye to the clouds can now access satellite images of lightning on the Bureau of Meteorology website.

The bureau had added a new layer to its existing high definition Himawari satellite cloud viewer that is updated every 10 minutes.

It will help to track thunderstorms as they approach a town or region almost at "real-time" to help people seek safety as a thunderstorm approaches, bureau data general manager Dr Anthony Rea said.

"Lightning is dangerous. It is associated with thunderstorms and can occur well away from the storm's centre," he said.

"Adding the new lightning layer to the satellite infrared cloud image will also help Australians living in remote areas with limited radar coverage to identify severe weather and track thunderstorms."

The viewer covers the continent and shows the frequency of lightning ranging from two to more than 20 strikes every 10 minutes, as well as the most recent four hours of lightning data, as it already does for cloud images.

Users can also zoom into areas a little larger than NSW and highlight state boundaries, coastal areas, roads and cities to find where the lightning struck.