North American natural gas futures showed some upward momentum this week as September heat promised continued support, but the prompt month still fell short of the $3.00/MMBtu mark.

The October New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures contract debuted strongly on Wednesday and rose 13.4 cents day/day to $2.796/MMBtu.

The gains could have been higher without Hurricane Idalia’s destructive path through Florida that led to a roughly 400,000 MMBtu/d day/day decline in the state’s Wednesday gas demand, according to Wood Mackenzie analyst Kara Ozgen. The analyst said there was a full rebound for Thursday. The firm’s estimates pointed to a roughly 87,000 MMBtu/d day/day cut to demand in Georgia.

The October futures contract settled at $2.768 on Thursday, down 2.8 cents...