An explicit open licence for this painting has not been established. The artwork is not reproduced.
A study against the weather record
Andrew Winter
Wreck at Lobster Cove, Monhegan, Maine
The museum dates this scene to the morning after the Sheridan grounding. What does the fog record say?
Regional fog contextPainted weather unresolved
The Nephos method
How this study was read
The method in fullWhat is written
The catalogue year and the depicted event are separate dates. The museum assigns Winter’s scene to the morning after the 5 November 1948 grounding.
The painting is of the following morning.
Jennifer Pye, Director, Monhegan Museum of Art & History, email to Vedang Sharma, 13 October 202611:15 p.m. Friday (Nov. 5)
Bangor Daily News, 8 November 1948, article and photograph caption, as transcribed in Aislinn Sarnacki, 1-minute hike: Lobster Cove on Monhegan Island, 20 May 2014 (updated 3 October 2019).dense fog Saturday morning
Bangor Daily News, 8 November 1948, article and photograph caption, as transcribed in Aislinn Sarnacki, 1-minute hike: Lobster Cove on Monhegan Island, 20 May 2014 (updated 3 October 2019).
Records of those days
- NOAA ISD, Portland airport, 999999-1476448 hourly reports over two full EST dates, 81.4 km from the Monhegan lighthouse reference. Visibility, wind, temperature and sky coverage; regional context.
Not found or not yet searched
- No island meteorological log or sea-state record has been recovered for this comparison.
- No verified object-specific account of the painted sky or of the painting sessions.
Each claim tested
- What happened to visibility at the airport? Portland recorded 100–200 m visibility at the six hourly reports from 06:00 to 11:00 EST on 6 November. This supports a regional fog context for the museum’s morning-after attribution, not the view from Lobster Cove.
- Does this establish a weather cause or the painter’s accuracy? No. A regional observation cannot establish visibility at a vessel, wave height at the shore, or what the artist retained or changed.
Verdict
Portland recorded 100–200 m visibility at the six hourly reports from 06:00 to 11:00 EST on 6 November. This supports a regional fog context for the museum’s morning-after attribution, not the view from Lobster Cove.
- Partially agreesThe reported fog during the Sheridan grounding The newspaper’s fog account and poor visibility at Portland are compatible; the airport is not the wreck site.
- UnknownThe painted sky and sea No verified sky description, local measurement or documented change by the artist.
What this cannot tell you. The archive’s zero visibility encoding is not a literal zero optical range. Wind averaging periods and historical exposure remain unresolved. All displayed hours are fixed EST (UTC−5). Summaries describe sampled hours, not continuous conditions. No artwork reproduction is shown because an explicit open licence was not established.
Step 1 · The picture and its date
A 1949 canvas, a November 1948 morning
The museum identifies Andrew Winter’s Wreck at Lobster Cove, Monhegan, Maine as a 1949 oil painting of the D.T. Sheridan. Its dating of the subject is more precise than the year on the catalogue: The painting is of the following morning.
That places the represented scene on 6 November 1948, according to Jennifer Pye’s email of 13 October 2026. The museum attribution.
This is a date for the scene, not proof that Winter painted the canvas outdoors that morning. No dated sketch, sitting record or account of its studio development has been verified. The painting’s sky and sea are not described here without a verified object-specific description or an inspected reproduction with a documented rights basis.
Step 2 · The contemporary account
Fog at the grounding; the clock needs care
Aislinn Sarnacki’s 2014 Bangor Daily News article transcribes the newspaper’s 8 November 1948 report and photograph caption. The caption puts the grounding at 11:15 p.m. Friday (Nov. 5)
; the article instead says early Saturday morning
and dense fog Saturday morning
. The caption supports the museum’s 5 November date, but the article preserves a Friday-night/Saturday-morning discrepancy. Publisher’s transcription.
The study retains both full calendar days. The report establishes fog as a reported condition; it does not establish the result of the casualty investigation or prove fog was the sole cause. The original newspaper scan, its printed page number and the investigating officer’s report remain unexamined.
Step 3 · The instrument record
Two days at Portland airport
The NOAA archive contains all 48 hourly reports for these two EST dates. The observing location in the reports is 81.4 km west of the Monhegan lighthouse reference. No values are transferred to the island. All displayed hours use fixed EST (UTC−5); an EDT clock is one hour later. The original UTC timestamps remain in the downloadable data.
At Portland, the six evening reports from 18:00 to 23:00 EST on 5 November encode 0–200 m visibility. At 06:00–11:00 EST on 6 November, the range is 100–200 m, with wind speeds of 1.5–5.2 m/s. Poor visibility therefore persisted in the airport’s morning reports. That is compatible with a regional fog episode, not proof that the same fog covered Lobster Cove.
Calculated sunrise on Monhegan is approximately 06:20 EST on 6 November, rounded to five minutes using NOAA’s solar equations and the lighthouse location reference. This assumes a level horizon and standard refraction; it does not establish visible sunlight or a painting hour. Calculation basis.
| EST interval | Reports | Visibility · km | Wind · m/s | Air · °C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5th · all 24 hourly reports | 24 | 0–8 | 0–3.1 | 10–16.7 |
| 5th · 18:00–23:00 | 6 | 0–0.2 | 1.5–2.6 | 10–11.1 |
| 6th · 06:00–11:00 | 6 | 0.1–0.2 | 1.5–5.2 | 11.1–13.9 |
| 6th · all 24 hourly reports | 24 | 0–4.8 | 1.5–8.2 | 10.6–15 |
Read all 48 hourly observations
| Day · EST | Visibility · km | Wind · m/s | From · ° | Air · °C | Cover · /8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05 · 00:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 225 | 11.7 | 8 |
| 05 · 01:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 180 | 11.7 | 8 |
| 05 · 02:00 | 0 | 3.1 | 225 | 12.2 | 8 |
| 05 · 03:00 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 203 | 12.2 | 8 |
| 05 · 04:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 203 | 11.7 | 8 |
| 05 · 05:00 | 0 | 3.1 | 180 | 11.7 | 8 |
| 05 · 06:00 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 225 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 05 · 07:00 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 225 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 05 · 08:00 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 270 | 12.2 | 8 |
| 05 · 09:00 | 3.2 | 1.5 | 315 | 13.3 | 8 |
| 05 · 10:00 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 45 | 13.9 | 8 |
| 05 · 11:00 | 4.8 | 2.1 | 270 | 15.6 | 8 |
| 05 · 12:00 | 6.4 | 0 | — | 16.1 | 5 |
| 05 · 13:00 | 8 | 2.1 | 90 | 16.7 | 0 |
| 05 · 14:00 | 8 | 3.1 | 180 | 16.7 | 0 |
| 05 · 15:00 | 4.8 | 3.1 | 158 | 15 | 2 |
| 05 · 16:00 | 3.2 | 1.5 | 135 | 13.3 | 6 |
| 05 · 17:00 | 3.2 | 1.5 | 90 | 11.7 | 3 |
| 05 · 18:00 | 0.2 | 2.1 | 45 | 10 | 8 |
| 05 · 19:00 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 45 | 10 | 8 |
| 05 · 20:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 45 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 05 · 21:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 45 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 05 · 22:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 90 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 05 · 23:00 | 0 | 2.6 | 45 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 06 · 00:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 45 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 06 · 01:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 45 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 06 · 02:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 68 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 06 · 03:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 68 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 06 · 04:00 | 0 | 1.5 | 90 | 10.6 | 8 |
| 06 · 05:00 | 0 | 2.6 | 90 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 06 · 06:00 | 0.1 | 2.1 | 90 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 06 · 07:00 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 90 | 11.1 | 8 |
| 06 · 08:00 | 0.1 | 2.1 | 180 | 12.8 | 8 |
| 06 · 09:00 | 0.1 | 3.1 | 180 | 13.3 | 8 |
| 06 · 10:00 | 0.1 | 4.6 | 180 | 13.9 | 8 |
| 06 · 11:00 | 0.2 | 5.2 | 180 | 13.9 | 8 |
| 06 · 12:00 | 0.2 | 5.2 | 180 | 14.4 | 8 |
| 06 · 13:00 | 0.4 | 4.6 | 180 | 15 | 8 |
| 06 · 14:00 | 1 | 5.2 | 180 | 15 | 8 |
| 06 · 15:00 | 1 | 4.6 | 180 | 14.4 | 8 |
| 06 · 16:00 | 1 | 5.2 | 180 | 14.4 | 8 |
| 06 · 17:00 | 4.8 | 5.7 | 180 | 15 | 8 |
| 06 · 18:00 | 4.8 | 8.2 | 180 | 15 | 7 |
| 06 · 19:00 | 4.8 | 5.7 | 180 | 14.4 | 8 |
| 06 · 20:00 | 4.8 | 6.7 | 180 | 13.9 | 8 |
| 06 · 21:00 | 4.8 | 8.2 | 180 | 13.9 | 8 |
| 06 · 22:00 | 0.1 | 5.2 | 180 | 13.3 | 8 |
| 06 · 23:00 | 1.6 | 6.2 | 180 | 13.3 | 8 |
Only values that passed all NOAA quality checks are used. Missing values, original fields, flags and source lines remain in the JSON. The wind record does not specify an averaging period; its speeds are neither gust maxima nor wave measurements. No climate rank, modern normal or station average is needed to answer this event question. Field definitions.
Step 4 · Back to the picture
What the comparison can carry
The records make the morning-after attribution worth pursuing: severe visibility restriction at the airport overlaps the museum’s scene date. They do not verify Winter’s painted sky or sea. A museum description or permitted image, the original wreck report and an island log could turn this regional comparison into a more local test. No change by Winter to the observed weather can yet be identified.
The museum can strengthen this study with the object’s making history, a specific description of its sky and sea, and the archival source behind the event date. Local fog or swell can differ sharply from an airport inland. Neither a painted rough sea nor a quiet airport wind, by itself, proves the weather caused a vessel’s loss.
Sources
Every source on this page
Weather values are decoded from NOAA files checked against their sha256 fingerprints. The receipts distinguish downloaded files, extracted metadata, short saved newspaper excerpts and an email from the museum’s director. The original newspaper scan was not inspected. Fingerprints preserve the evidence used; they do not independently validate the interpretation.
- NOAA ISD station history, 999999–14764
sha256 1994747ab4af1b97e63adb434b4d0d022f2daee76f0c144ea9ab46be2d906604 - NOAA Integrated Surface Data format
sha256 1be604b08b5f7c2429e6aef178ff8893019c234bc7bc51bfb7ec1e16a6682f04 - US Lighthouse Society, Monhegan Island location
sha256 2c5db4cf87433d0d9d6e47e7e3a188d9af3666a74db556b075cf4c691ab94ca3 - US Lighthouse Society, original location page
sha256 248666edcfe0da8ee9c7804a7a331c858eb7ba338565fab5a578f518bd25cd3f - NOAA ISD, Portland airport, 1948, 999999–14764
sha256 e3939c9ef69c37918b5a489add09c5f1ff7a49b7f38581e7430b9937280f0840 - Jennifer Pye, Director, Monhegan Museum of Art & History, email to the author, 13 October 2026
sha256 c185daa09a198639b6a93bf56c0b8728eb4a4f61ccce0d9de8a31e3a6610f064 - Bangor Daily News, 8 November 1948, as transcribed by Aislinn Sarnacki in 2014
sha256 aab43eb11e6f44db297fc562b136872be2313e76e12af05afdf1e2c7fed036e3 - NOAA, General Solar Position Calculations
sha256 7fa1fdb5f6b5c05ab1ec3ffde92e6fb2d5df98bf1a87055075ae2c3c1240a627