Climate and Weather

http://www.micmacmedia.com/Sierra_Stories/Floods_in_Driest_State/floods_in_driest_state.html A less happy ending occurred on August 11, 1941 amid heavy thunderstorms that soaked much of Nevada. One-half mile of Western Pacific track washed out near Beowawe, causing 40 cars on a freight train to derail. Floodwaters rushed across U.S. 40. That day Fred Bishop and his wife were traveling east on U.S. 40 on their way to Chicago. Bishop, a veteran Western Pacific train agent, had acted as a weather observer at Sulphur, a lonely posting west of Winnemucca, for more than a quarter century.

When the Bishops encountered the muddy flow crossing the highway near Beowawe, they stopped and got out of the car. Tragically, Bishop was standing only a few feet from his wife when a surge of water caught him. Mrs. Bishop saw her husband swallowed by the torrent. She told a reporter, "As I got to high ground, he waved 'Goodbye, dear,' and that was the last I saw of him." Bishop's battered body was discovered the next day, five miles away.