Modest cooling trends in the latest weather data had natural gas futures trading close to even early Wednesday. The December Nymex contract was up 1.3 cents to $2.962/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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Forecasting from Bespoke Weather Services early Wednesday showed a second consecutive day of projected demand gains, with a few days toward the front half of the 15-day outlook moving closer to normal in terms of temperatures.

This is the result of “a couple of upper level troughs swinging through the eastern third of the nation,” Bespoke said. “As it stands right now, we do not have a single day in the forecast that is colder than normal, however.”

With the combination of a positive Eastern Pacific Oscillation and positive North Atlantic Oscillation “continuing to look...