The storm continues to rage outside so we've remained in the same place today. I went out to answer the call of nature, to dig up some more snow for drinking water and to shovel away the giant drift threatening to bury one end of our tent and the conditions were some of the worst I've ever seen.

I've had tent-bound storm days on previous expeditions, and conditions outside are usually far more benign than they sound inside the flapping, booming tent. Here it's the opposite: it was worse outside than I'd imagined and unzipping the outer door of the tent felt like trying to crawl out of a car window as it hurtled through a blizzard at motorway speeds.

Once outside, if I only kept one hand on the shovel it flew horizontally like a flag in the wind, and while I went about my business the gale hurled fine, gritty snow into my hood, my boots... As I chopped blocks of snow for our stove, the smaller fist-sized chunks just blew away, so I filled our sack with boulders.

The noise and the sheer violence of the weather now I'm back in the tent is remarkable.

For now we're upbeat; a rest will have done us good, and we knew Antarctica would have days like this in store for us.

(Today's picture is from clearer times before the storm came in.)