{
 "schema": "nephos.method.v1",
 "slug": "ufer-winter-in-new-mexico",
 "title": "Walter Ufer, Winter in New Mexico, c.1930, Harwood Museum of Art",
 "urls": [
  "/studies/ufer-winter-in-new-mexico"
 ],
 "written": {
  "summary": "Nephos reads snow marked by footprints, two shawled figures and sunlit ochre rocks beneath a partly clouded sky: a sunny winter interval after snowfall. This is Nephos’s reading of the picture, not a museum statement. Harwood’s c.1930 remains approximate.",
  "items": [
   {
    "quote": "c.1930",
    "source": "Harwood Museum of Art, Early 20th Century & Taos Society of Artists",
    "url": "https://harwoodmuseum.org/art/collections/early-20th-century-taos-society-of-artists/"
   },
   {
    "quote": "Thawing",
    "source": "Richard F. Oakley, Taos cooperative observer sheet, 1930-01",
    "url": "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/nerms/api/document/EE0DB4B6BECA47ADB02EC8B40004B516/download"
   },
   {
    "quote": "placing him in the sun or indoors",
    "source": "Macbeth Gallery, Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Walter Ufer (1928)",
    "url": "https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p15324coll1/id/1930/download"
   }
  ]
 },
 "records": [
  {
   "name": "Taos, GHCN-Daily USC00298668",
   "detail": "22 December–February seasons, 1914–15 through 1935–36. Positive snow depth survives in 16; all counts of cover are observed minima.",
   "url": "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/all/USC00298668.dly"
  },
  {
   "name": "Richard F. Oakley’s original Taos observer sheets",
   "detail": "Fifteen monthly sheets supply daily Clear, Partly cloudy and Cloudy categories for the five winters ending 1928–1932; one illegible cell remains unknown.",
   "url": "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/services/search/v2/publications/cooperative-weather-observations-publication?startDate=1927-12-01&endDate=1932-02-29&COOPID=298668&limit=100"
  },
  {
   "name": "NOAA 1991–2020 Taos normals",
   "detail": "December–February snowfall totals 46.5 cm in the provisional normals. No snow-depth normal is supplied.",
   "url": "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/normals-monthly/1991-2020/access/USC00298668.csv"
  }
 ],
 "gaps": [
  "No object-specific session, dated sketch or precise viewpoint has been established.",
  "The accessible Harwood caption has no accession number; the detailed catalogue returned an access challenge.",
  "Notre Dame’s diaries were not inspected. No newspaper weather item for the focus winters was verified; this does not mean none survives."
 ],
 "tests": [
  {
   "claim": "Did snow lie at Taos on clear winter days?",
   "result": "Taos records at least 37 clear days with snow lying in 1931–32, and 27 in 1928–29. These are strong environmental candidates for Nephos’s reading of the picture, not dates for the painting."
  },
  {
   "claim": "Did clear weather follow snowfall while snow still lay?",
   "result": "In 1929–30, 5 of 6 eligible snowfall dates were followed within three days by Clear with positive depth. The final snowfall is excluded because its three-day window crosses into March."
  },
  {
   "claim": "Is there a then-versus-now comparison?",
   "result": "The 18 complete historical winters average 44.5 cm of snowfall; the provisional 1991–2020 normals total 46.5 cm for the same months. This is descriptive, not a snow-cover trend."
  }
 ],
 "finding": "Taos records at least 37 clear days with snow lying in 1931–32, and 27 in 1928–29. These are strong environmental candidates for Nephos’s reading of the picture, not dates for the painting.",
 "verdicts": [
  {
   "claim": "Sunlight with snow lying: Nephos’s visual reading",
   "verdict": "Partially agrees",
   "reason": "The combination occurs repeatedly at Taos. The station is regional evidence, not the unidentified painted path."
  },
  {
   "claim": "The painted winter or an alteration of observed weather",
   "verdict": "Unknown",
   "reason": "No dated making record or preparatory comparison establishes either."
  }
 ],
 "limits": [
  "The five focus winters were chosen around c.1930, not because of their weather; the broader period is biographical. Neither is a new date range for the painting.",
  "Positive depth counts are minima. Gaps and rounded thin cover prevent ranking true snow-cover duration; a clear-day category is stricter than visible sunlight through clouds.",
  "Snowfall follow-up windows may overlap. They count recorded snowfall dates, not independent storms or a probability that Ufer painted then.",
  "Taos historical instrument locations and observing hours changed or remain incompletely reconstructed; no stations are pooled.",
  "The modern normals are provisional, and the modern depth record is too incomplete for a thirty-year snow-cover comparison."
 ]
}