Warm adjustments to the forecast and lingering questions surrounding bearish government inventory data pressured natural gas futures lower early Friday. The April Nymex contract was down 1.8 cents to $2.728/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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The latest forecasts early Friday showed some warmer changes focused on next week, when national gas-weighted degree days are on track to briefly approach “record warm levels,” according to Bespoke Weather Services.

“This level of warmth still appears to be more an aberration than the rule, as we have seen some variability this week and expect to again after next week,” Bespoke said. “Given a lack of high latitude ridging/blocking, it is difficult to envision a strongly anomalous colder outbreak, but we get enough cooler air mixing in...