Warming trends from forecasts over the weekend, albeit with hints of potential colder temperatures for key U.S. regions later this month, pressured natural gas futures lower in early trading Monday. The February Nymex contract was down 3.8 cents to $2.662/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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After previously offering different outlooks on the upcoming pattern, the major weather models resolved their differences over the weekend, ultimately favoring the European model, according to analysts at EBW Analytics Group. This would delay “the earliest cooling by nearly a week” and result in a “large loss in natural gas demand” for the next two storage weeks, they said.

“If this were the end of the story, natural gas futures might be expected to drop sharply. But it’s not,” the...