Antarctic Thesaurus
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benthos beset blizzard bottom water
blizzard
14th March 1955 Mawson
The first snow of the season must have fallen on the plateau last week, because on Monday we had our first real blizzard. A strong wind whipped up drift snow and filled the air with tiny snow crystals; cold damp to feel and oddly frightening to see it fume in turbulent corners and run just above ground level in a whispy smoke that in no time drops mounds of snow in the lee of any building or rock.
5th. July 1955
A two-day blizzard; the wind tearing and blinding. Drift affects the eyes like a blast of icy water. At first everything blurs then the pain of the coldness. You can see only a few yards. Drift slithers around walls and over roofs with a soft rustle, a secret haste.
8th. July 1955
A half-day blizzard today ... a new colder one of zero F - our wildest yet. The wind hisses and the drift scratches outside the hut. At the windows it flings itself in white waves against the glass, beating at it as the seas beat at portholes ... Most eerily the wind can press a sudden organ note out of the hollow tubes of wireless masts. The note strengthens and weakens in a deep low threatening wail. The blizzard keeps going with a violent wind quite strong enough to flatten to the ground, a heavy man. The air swirling opaque and clutching even at the breath of near helpless humans, covered and masked as we are. Eyes and mouth close up.
27th. July 1955
The blizzard kept on for another four days. Winds reached 110 miles an hour in gusts. For a whole day the average wind was 80mph! Went to Mt. Henderson again by weasel. Remote weather station there badly upset.
Jack Ward, Radio operater with Australian Antarctic Division, Mawson diary (1955)
