Wind and blizz sounds:
On May 11th we experienced our first “full-blow” blizzard. From early morning the air was thick with flying snow. At noon the barometer was still dropping. Hundred-mile-an-hour wind gusts struck the huts, and the wireless masts whined a melancholic message from the cold, white hell.
p. 104-4, Twelve Came Back, Peter Lancaster Brown. Pub. 1957, Robert Hale Ltd. London
On burying the dead on Heard Island, 1952:
As we paid our last respects, the wind screamed through the wireless masts, and two sledge dogs broke out into a mournful chorus, accentuating the scene of utterdesolation. There could never have been a more fitting “last post”.
p. 124 Twelve Came Back, Peter Lancaster Brown. Pub. 1957, Robert Hale Ltd. London
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16th. June 1955 Mawson Latitude 66s Longitude 62e
Still quiet days; sometimes sharply cold then quickly warm again.
In the radio masts a wild worrying sound of wind.20th. June 1955 Mawson Latitude 66s Longitude 62e
Blustering wind up to 80 miles an hour, yet no drift.
This month has been so unusually quiet so far that the noise of the gale makes us uneasy.5th. July 1955 Mawson Latitude 66s Longitude 62e
A two-day blizzard; the wind tearing and blinding. Drift affect 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 Mawson Latitude 66s Longitude 62e
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.
Jack Ward’s 1955 Mawson Dairy (unpublished)