Completing the third official week of winter on Wednesday, temperatures for a majority of the U.S remain anything but winter-like as warmer than normal weather continues to flood many regions of the country. The warming trend has alleviated the perceived pressure on natural gas supply as the Gulf of Mexico continues to recover from 2005’s overactive hurricane season.

Since the warm trend hit following the second week of December, February natural gas has plummeted from a high of $15.780 on Dec. 13, 2005 to an intra-day low of $9.150 on Jan. 9, marking a $6.630 swing in just less than a month. The weather has been so warm relative to seasonal norms that the Energy Information Administration shocked the industry last week by reporting that 1 Bcf of gas was injected into underground storage for the week ended Dec. 30, a surprising and unprecedented move during the heart of the withdrawal season.

Hurricane-induced production shut-ins in the Gulf of Mexico continue to decline in small increments. According to the Minerals Management Service on Monday, 1.855.56 MMcf/d remains offline, which is down slightly from the 1,878.66 MMcf/d that was offline last Thursday. To date, 581.682 Bcf has been shut-in as a result of hurricane damage, which is equivalent to almost 16% of the 3.65 Tcf in yearly production out of the resource area.

Colder than normal temperatures don’t appear to be on the horizon either. While AccuWeather.com is forecasting a “roller coaster weather ride” for the rest of the week, the forecasting firm noted that the very cold arctic air “will remain bottled up” in Canada.

AccuWeather.com said the jet stream, which has been taking a West-to-East route over the past couple of weeks, will plunge south by Friday. “The jet stream will take a wild ride across the country later this week,” said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Jon Mabry. “Instead of a zonal West-to-East flow, the jet will plunge into the South states Friday, resulting in a strong storm system over the Midwest. This storm will bring snow to the northern Great Lakes, rain to the Ohio Valley and strong to severe thunderstorms across the Deep South.”

The forecaster noted that high pressure will build over the Rockies in the West, bringing dry and warm weather to the Southwest and mild weather to the northern Rockies. There are no big changes expected in the Northwest as the wet weather pattern is expected to continue.

AccuWeather.com said the current cold front will not bring any significant cold air to the Northeast, but Tuesday’s highs were expected to be about 10 degrees cooler than Monday’s highs in the 50’s. “New York City should reach the mid-40’s, above the normal high of 38. Philadelphia could see the thermometer slide into the low 50’s, well below the record high of 63 set on this date in 1950,” the forecasting firm said.

The National Weather Service (NWS) is also seeing continued warmth in most regions for the near term. The NWS still sees two-thirds of the country coming in with warmer than normal temperatures from Jan. 16-20. According to the NWS’ latest six-to-10-day forecast, the entire East and central portions of the country are expected to be warmer than normal, with the Northeast expected to be much warmer than normal for this time of year. The Southwest is expected to be colder than normal while the rest of the West has an equal chance of above or below normal temperatures during this period.

The NWS’ eight-to-14-day outlook covering Jan. 18-24 gets a little colder however, as the “equal chance” line shifts further East and the West plunges into below normal temperatures. Most of the Central portion of the country will remain warmer than normal, while the Northeast still is expected to see much above normal readings.

©Copyright 2006Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.