From Roughing It (Chapter 21), where Twain describes the "Washoe Zephyr," his nickname for the fierce Nevada wind:
"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. And yet the first complaint a Washoe visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the sea winds blow so, there! There is a good deal of human nature in that."
And later in the same chapter, the more pointed bit about how destructive it can get:
"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..."
