There are some crazy winds swirling around Carson City tonight. It’s one of those nights where you just want to shut the windows, tie down anything lighter than 50 pounds (including the dog), and spend the night inside. And make sure your car isn’t parked under any trees with heavy branches!
And as you curl up in bed, with the Washoe Zephyr rattling at your rafters, keep in mind the words of Mark Twain:
This was all we saw that day, for it was two o’clock, now, and according to custom the daily “Washoe Zephyr” set in; a soaring dust-drift about the size of the United States set up edgewise came with it, and the capital of Nevada Territory disappeared from view.
Still, there were sights to be seen which were not wholly uninteresting to new comers; for the vast dust cloud was thickly freckled with things strange to the upper air–things living and dead, that flitted hither and thither, going and coming, appearing and disappearing among the rolling billows of dust–hats, chickens and parasols sailing in the remote heavens; blankets, tin signs, sage-brush and shingles a shade lower; door-mats and buffalo robes lower still; shovels and coal scuttles on the next grade; glass doors, cats and little children on the next; disrupted lumber yards, light buggies and wheelbarrows on the next; and down only thirty or forty feet above ground was a scurrying storm of emigrating roofs and vacant lots.
It was something to see that much. I could have seen more, if I could have kept the dust out of my eyes. But seriously a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then blows a stage coach over and spills the passengers; and tradition says the reason there are so many bald people there, is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are looking skyward after their hats. Carson streets seldom look inactive on Summer afternoons, because there are so many citizens skipping around their escaping hats, like chambermaids trying to head off a spider.
The “Washoe Zephyr” (Washoe is a pet nickname for Nevada) is a peculiar Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth “whence it cometh.” That is to say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-top for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular wind, in the summer time. Its office hours are from two in the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody venturing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point he is aiming at.
I didnt know it had a name….
There’s even a club for homebrewers called the Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists. I’m not sure if they’re still around, but they had a website back in the day. Homebrew is good when it’s windy.
Sorry, the above was me.
Here’s the website: Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists. They still have a PDF newsletter they publish on the site every month. Looks like somebody needs to clue them into blogging.