Australia's Pilbara Ports Authority (PPA) will start clearing iron ore loading facility Port Hedland's inner harbour of vessels at 2:00am local time (6:00pm GMT) on 12 April, ahead of a tropical cyclone.
The port operator has already cleared port anchorages within the Port Hedland boundary, the world's largest bulk commodity export facility said on 11 April.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has warned of potential severe impact from the as-yet unnamed tropical low, which is expected to intensify to a cyclone in the coming hours as it tracks southward. The storm will be known as tropical cyclone Ilsa when it reaches cyclone-intensity.
The authority said the system is moving in a southwest direction from a location in the Indian Ocean, 410km north of Broome. It is likely to cross the coast between Port Hedland and Broome on 13-14 April, possibly at a category 4 level. BoM categorises the severity of tropical cyclones from 1 to 5, with category 5 being the most severe.
Daily rainfall totals of 10-30mm are forecast for 11-12 April around west Kimberley and Pilbara with isolated higher totals possible. More intense rainfall totals of 150-300mm with higher localised falls are possible over 13-16 April, along the path of the cyclone.
March exports by the port's four major users slumped with heavy rain hampering output in the Pilbara mining region, following February's two-year low in weekly shipments from the port.
It has been about a decade since a category 4 cyclone impacted Western Australia's coastline, with cyclone Rusty causing A$800mn ($524mn) in damages in 2013. The present warning zone for the storm excludes much of the Pilbara's iron ore-producing mines.
