MetraWeather provides a portfolio of forecasting products and services to anticipate and meet the unique and changing needs of the mining industry.
Mining might chiefly be about what comes out of the ground - but when it comes to safety and protecting assets, some of the largest risks come from above.
The weather presents some challenging hazards to safe mining operations. Lightning poses a risk to personnel and plant, explosives handling and construction activities. Heavy rain can flood mines and bog down access roads. High-winds can disrupt blasting and high temperatures can impact both staff and machinery.
However, with effective planning the disruption caused by adverse weather can be minimised and risks mitigated.
Mine operators now proactively and effectively manage pending storm risks with technology which tracks observed lightning, delivers proximity alerts, and forecasts activity over the coming hour.
Guidance is delivered via a tailored online platform and email alerts warn when severe weather is expected, promoting immediate action. The forecasting may be easily integrated into Health & Safety policies, risk assessment and Trigger Action Response Plans (TARPs).
These forecasting solutions have been developed to support a myriad of operational needs in the sector:
○ Hourly-granularity mine-specific forecasts
- Wind speed and direction
- Temperature
- Low-level atmospheric stability
○ Daily granularity mine-specific forecasts
- Rainfall accumulation
○ Weather risk matrices, with a selection of algorithms customisable by mine
- Thunderstorms
- Heavy rain
- High wind gusts
- Extreme heat
- Blowing dust
- Inversion / blasting noise
○ Rain radar imagery
○ Tropical cyclone tracking, warnings and monitoring
○ Near real-time lightning (cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud) proximity visualisations
○ Lightning alerting via SMS and email to Peabody's recipients' directory
○ Dust and fume dispersion modelling
○ 1-on-1 meteorological consultations with specialist forecasters
The services are delivered over the MetraWeather MetConnect online weather platform and appear in a customisable weather dashboard.
The dashboard enables control rooms to identify where disruptive washouts and flooding may occur, and to configure user-defined alert thresholds based upon their procedures and processes. The platform not only provides future weather insights, but also enables the control rooms to disseminate highly-accurate, site-specific information to employees in the field.
The weather data in the dashboard maybe complimented with data derived from onsite automatic weather stations (AWS). This ‘machine-learning’ capability progressively enables the forecasts to be finely tuned based upon past observations at specific sites.
Contact in Australia
Lucy Batt
Regional Sales Manager – Australia
MetraWeather Australia Pty Ltd
E lucy.batt@metraweather.com
M +61 400 373 782
Contact in South East Asia
James Caust
General Manager, Thailand & Asia
MetraWeather Thailand
E james.caust@metraweather.com
M +66 89 979 1233