As forecasts strengthened a blast of early winter cold expected to sweep through the Lower 48 by the weekend, natural gas futures continued to climb in early trading Wednesday. Coming off a 4.5-cent gain in the previous session, the November Nymex contract was up another 4.3 cents to $3.014/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Natural gas prices climbed Tuesday as forecasts gave the market its “first taste of winter,” NatGasWeather told clients early Wednesday. Prices could be “quite volatile” with the November contract set to expire by the end of the week, the firm noted.

As for overnight forecast trends, the American model added several heating degree days, with the European dataset also adding a “minor” amount of heating demand to the outlook, according to the...