Natural gas futures rallied over the first two days of the week but gave up that ground Wednesday as expectations for a stout storage build overlapped with the demand uncertainty inflicted by Hurricane Sally after it moved into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and made landfall.

The October Nymex contract dropped 9.5 cents day/day and settled at $2.267/MMBtu. November fell 7.7 cents to $2.664.

Spot gas prices also declined as cooling demand eased along with fading summer heat. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. declined 5.5 cents to $1.835.

Sally made landfall on Alabama’s coast as a Category 2 hurricane early Wednesday, then tracked along the border with Florida and delivered strong winds and massive flooding. The hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1 as it moved ashore. But...