Following a stretch of heavy selling going back to last week, natural gas futures rebounded in early trading Wednesday as weather models advertised a notably colder outlook for the second half of December.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The January Nymex contract was up 17.0 cents to $5.639/MMBtu at around 8:55 a.m. ET. February was up 14.0 cents to $5.518.

Both the American and European weather models underwent sizable colder trends overnight, adding around 15-20 heating degree days to the outlook, according to NatGasWeather.

“It’s no surprise the weather data trended colder after five straight days of warmer trends,” the firm said. Still, the extent of the colder shift may have been “more than the natural gas markets were expecting.

“Most important, the overnight data trended colder for Dec....