Moranbah AWS

The study area is sparsely populated, and the only meteorological observations relevant to this analysis are provided by the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) located at Moranbah Airport (22.062148° S, 148.075251° E). This AWS is operated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). The spatial relationship between the AWS and the Hail Creek mine is shown in Figure 3 .

This type of AWS is designed primarily for aviation purposes and records observations at 30-minute intervals. Additional observations are logged when rapid changes are detected (e.g., strong wind gusts). The observation file includes the following attributes:

• Precipitation in last 10 minutes ($\mathrm{mm}$)
• Precipitation since 9am local time in ($\mathrm{mm}$)
• Air Temperature ($°C$)
• Wet bulb temperature ($°C$)
• Dew point temperature ($°C$)
• Relative humidity in percentage %
• Wind speed in ($\frac{\mathrm{km}}{\mathrm{hour}}$)
• Wind direction in degrees true
• Speed of maximum wind gust in last 10 minutes in ($\frac{\mathrm{km}}{\mathrm{hour}}$)
• Ceilometer cloud amount (of first group)
• Ceilometer cloud height (of first group) ($m$)
• Ceilometer cloud amount (of second group)
• Ceilometer cloud height (of second group) ($m$)
• Ceilometer cloud amount (of third group)
• Ceilometer cloud height (of third group) ($m$)
• Visibility in ($\mathrm{km}$)
• Mean sea level pressure ($\mathrm{hPa}$)
• Station level pressure in ($\mathrm{hPa}$)
• QNH pressure in ($\mathrm{hPa}$)

Data collected by this AWS can be purchased from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). It should be noted that observations from this station are incorporated into global meteorological datasets and are typically assimilated into international reanalysis and forecast products, such as ERA5 and GDAS, discussed below.