Giles Weather Station (also referred to as Giles Meteorological Station or Giles) is located in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

near the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

border, about west-south-west of

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

and west of

Uluru Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially Gazette#Gazette as a verb, gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone geological formation, formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the ...

. It is the only staffed weather station within an area of about and is situated mid-continent and near the core of the subtropical

jetstream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west to east) ...

. This means it plays an important role as a weather and climate observatory for the country, particularly eastern and southeastern Australia, and particularly for rainfall predictions. The station is on the

Great Central Road The Great Central Road is a mostly unsealed Australian outback highway that runs from Laverton, Western Australia to Yulara, Northern Territory (near Uluru / Ayers Rock). It passes through a number of small communities on the way. History The ...

and the nearest township is the

Warakurna Warakurna is a large Aboriginal community, located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, within the Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku and is situated on the Great Central Road (part of the Outback Way ultimately connecting Perth to ...

Aboriginal settlement (population 180), North. Giles is within the

Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku The Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku is a remote local government area in Western Australia near the Northern Territory/South Australian border. It is from Perth. It was formed on 1 July 1993 following a report of the Local Government Boundaries Commi ...

and is in the foothills of the

Rawlinson Ranges Purli Yurliya or Rawlinson Ranges is a mountain range in the far east of central Western Australia, to the west of the Petermann Ranges, with which it is commonly associated. Both features were given their European names by Ernest Giles, the fir ...

. A staff of three operates the remote station on six-monthly tours.

Giles Airport Giles Airport services the Warakurna Community and the Giles Weather Station in eastern Western Australia. The airstrip was built during April and May 1956 by a team led by Len Beadell as part of establishing the weather station for the British n ...

, a airstrip services the station and the Warakurna community. Tourists are invited to watch the daily release of

weather balloon A weather balloon, also known as sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a ...

s and browse through the Visitor's Centre. Station tours are no longer conducted on a regular basis.

History

Giles is named after English explorer

Ernest Giles William Ernest Powell Giles (20 July 1835 – 13 November 1897), best known as Ernest Giles, was an Australian explorer who led five major expeditions to parts of South Australia and Western Australia. Early life Ernest Giles was born in Bris ...

, the first European to travel through the area in 1874. Surveyor and roadbuilder

Len Beadell Leonard Beadell OAM BEM FIEMS (21 April 1923 – 12 May 1995) was a surveyor, road builder, bushman, artist and author, responsible for constructing over of roads and opening up isolated desert areas – some – of central Australia fr ...

, who worked for the Weapons Research Establishment (now known as the Defence Science and Technology Group), selected the site for a meteorological station in December 1955. It was needed to forecast weather conditions suitable for nuclear weapons testing at

Emu Field Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at (ground zero Totem I test). Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in Octob ...

and

Maralinga Maralinga, in the remote western areas of South Australia, was the site, measuring about in area, of British nuclear tests in the mid-1950s. In January 1985 native title was granted to the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Aborigi ...

. The location was strongly opposed by

Walter MacDougall Walter Batchelor MacDougall (6 April 1907 – 5 May 1976) was an Australian missionary and patrol officer who worked with the indigenous peoples in the desert regions of Western Australia and South Australia Biography MacDougall was born in Morni ...

since it lay on tribal land. Beadell surveyed and built

, and chose the name Giles during construction of the

Gunbarrel Highway The Gunbarrel Highway is an isolated desert track in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. It consists of about of washaways, heavy corrugations, stone, sand and flood plains. The Gunbarrel Highway connects Victory D ...

which links Carnegie Station and Giles. Beadell's grader, which is estimated to have travelled over in the course of making the roads, was retired in 1963 and is preserved on display at Giles. Later, the weather station provided support for rocket testing programs at Woomera, as Giles was close to the centre-line of fire from the launch site. Wreckage from the first

Blue Streak missile The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. Blue Streak was cancelled without entering full production. The project was ...

, launched from Woomera on 5 June 1964, is on display at the station.

Docker River Kaltukatjara , also known as Docker River, is a remote Indigenous Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is southwest of Alice Springs, west of the Stuart Highway, near the Western Australia and Northern Territory bord ...

, north-east and just across the state border in the Northern Territory, was established by the government as an aboriginal settlement for local people in the 1960s. Overcrowding there and at Warburton created a need for a new community which became

in the mid-1970s. In 1972 control of the station was transferred from the

Department of Defence Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

to the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together ...

. A ''

Landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

'' story in 2018 stated that Giles would soon become the last mainland regional weather station to be permanently staffed, with all the others being automated.

Climate

Giles is in an area that has a

desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

BWh) with hot summers and mild winters. Rainfall is highly variable; recorded annual values have ranged from in 1961 to in 2001. The periodic southward movement of the

monsoon trough The monsoon trough is a portion of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the Western Pacific,Bin WangThe Asian Monsoon.Retrieved 2008-05-03. as depicted by a line on a weather map showing the locations of minimum sea level pressure, and as such, ...

and ex-tropical cyclones cause heavy rain events in the wetter months from November to March. Dry spells often occur, particularly in winter; the longest period without rain was 125 days from 17 May to 21 September 1961.

References

External links

{{commons category, Giles Weather Station
Gazetteer of AustraliaGiles: Australia's most remote weather station
Meteorological stations Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku Bureau of Meteorology