Getting significant boosts from both the screen and further revision in thinking about how cold this week’s weather will be, prices were in major rebound mode Monday. Double-digit gains were recorded across the board, with several points in both the East and West seeing upticks in the vicinity of 40 cents.

It was mainly technically driven short-covering behind the Nymex run-up, a Northeast utility buyer said, but some fundamental weather strength probably also was involved. The region will be near freezing in the 30s by the end of the week, she said, and frosts are expected in parts of New England and upstate New York.

Tuesday’s overnight lows were expected to be in the 20s and 30s in the Northeast and in the 30s and 40s in the Midwest, which certainly would account for a fair amount of heating load factored into Monday’s market. However, cool and pleasant weather was forecast for the South, and Northwest Pipeline said temperatures in the Pacific Northwest were so relatively warm that it had to caution shippers against overloading its linepack.

Hurricane Juan caused at least two deaths while going ashore late Sunday night in Nova Scotia, but there was no disruption of the 450-500 MMcf/d in production at Sable Offshore Energy Project southeast of Halifax, according to a spokesman for operator ExxonMobil. Power outages were still affecting about 150,000 in the Maritimes province late Monday afternoon, he said, but that represented approximately a 50% recovery. Juan was Nova Scotia’s “worst [hurricane] in 40-50 years, they say,” the spokesman reported.

Juan was downgraded to a tropical storm following landfall and was fading into oblivion as it sped across Newfoundland late Monday. The National Hurricane Center said it would have no further advisories on Juan. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Kate was a remote blip on the gas market radar, moving northeastward at nearly 18 mph about 725 miles southwest of Lajes in the Azores; that is, closer to West Africa than to North America. “Kate could become a hurricane tonight or Tuesday,” NHC said.

The Weather Channel said it was watching carefully as “heavy squalls continue to boil up over the northwest Caribbean Sea and the Yucatan Channel. Upper-level winds are favorable for the development of a tropical depression near the channel or in the extreme southern Gulf of Mexico.”

A utility buyer said she suspected that there would be no Sable impact on Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline throughput upon seeing a $4.85-5.10 bid-ask spread at Dracut in early trading Monday.

Southern California border and San Juan Basin numbers saw some of the day’s biggest upticks of 40 cents or more when SoCalGas lifted an Overnominations Day notice after Saturday.

There’s a lot of signs of winter coming in early this year, said a Calgary-based producer. He found good convergence between an early-morning October Chicago citygate sale at $4.74 Monday and an incremental deal at $4.72. However, “Nymex kept creeping up” and carried bidweek numbers with it, he said, reporting hearing mid $4.80s pricing for baseload October supplies Monday afternoon.

An East Coast utility buyer said she was finished with October business “unless prices fall enough to create some bargains” Tuesday. A Midcontinent marketer was also hoping that late bidweek prices would be coming back down because “there is still some gas I would like to buy, so I will be out shopping on the last day.”

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