June natural gas is set to open 4 cents lower Tuesday morning at $3.31 as weather forecasts offer little in the way of price guidance, yet traders see the ongoing price advance intact for the moment. Overnight oil markets rose.

The weather picture is mixed, with modest changes in projected heating and cooling load near term. “[Tuesday’s] six-10 day period forecast is a little cooler than yesterday’s forecast over the eastern half of the CONUS but warmer over portions of the West,” said WSI Corp. in its morning report to clients. “GWHDDs are up 1.1 to 12.5 for the period. PWCDDs are down 0.2 to 20.9.

“The track and timing of low pressure offers risks in either direction over the central and eastern U.S. late the period. The GFS offers a cooler risk over the Midcontinent. The West Coast and Northwest have minor warm risks.”

Tom Saal, vice president of FCStone Latin America LLC in Miami, in his work with Market Profile says to expect the market to test Monday’s value area at $3.367 to $3.349 before moving on and testing $3.425 to $3.399 or $3.243 to $3.213. He was not sure in which order the latter two value areas would be tested.

Traders are not committed to a market position at this time. “This choppy price action is likely to continue through the balance of this month when early summer weather forecasts will evolve as the decider of near-term price direction,” said Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates in a morning report to clients.

“But for now, short-term trends are tilted higher and should be respected, despite a continued significant storage overhang. Dynamics drive near-term price swings, and we feel that the ongoing narrowing in the surplus could keep this short-term bull market alive unless Thursday’s storage report offers a bearish shocker, such as an injection of more than about 70 Bcf. We remain sidelined after again getting pushed off of the short side with another small loss. We will await the EIA report later this week before reviewing our near-term trading strategies.”

In overnight Globex trading June crude oil gained 32 cents to $49.17/bbl and June RBOB gasoline rose a penny to $1.6090/gal.