With a cold front gradually extending its reach into the Midcontinent and forecasts of frigid weather later this week in the key market areas of the Midwest and Northeast, prices were mixed on either side of flat Tuesday, but gains tended to outweigh the losses.

The Gulf Coast garnered the lion’s share of declines ranging up to about a dime, while the starting-to-shiver Midcontinent/Midwest led advancing points. Most upticks were around a dime or less, but Northern Natural Gas’s demarcation point topped the dime-plus gainers with an increase of nearly 20 cents in highly volatile trading. Saying its normal system weighted temperature at this time of year is 41 degrees, NNG projected that its system would average from 24 to 27 degrees Wednesday through Friday.

A utility buyer reported his demarc deals saw a wide range of 26 cents in a run-up as trading proceeded. He said he was able to pick up a very early package in the mid $4.10s “before anyone could figure out how much heating load” a spreading cold front was generating. The strong gains in later deals suggested to him that prices will rise again Wednesday. However, he added, other than coping with the colder weather, “it’s staying a pretty quiet and dull market for early November.”

Such volatility was almost absent in a western trader’s quotes, although he did see Waha go up about a dime to the mid $4.00s in a late deal. “We only had light trading, so nothing was really exciting,” he said. “Prices were fairly flat particularly when compared to the roller-coaster ride of the last two trading days.”

Going into the weekend most of the Upper Midwest was still rather mild, a marketer said, “but it sure has turned colder since then.” A low of 17 degrees was forecast for Friday in his city, he added.

A mass of polar air causing freezing conditions in the Upper Plains and Upper Midwest will be moving eastward over the next couple of days, bringing its chill to the rest of the Midwest and then the Northeast, according to The Weather Channel. Even parts of the South will be getting a taste of winter by Friday, it added. The desert Southwest is experiencing mild to cool weather, but most of the rest of the West is recording sub-freezing lows.

The National Hurricane Center issued a “special tropical disturbance statement” early Tuesday afternoon, saying an area of low pressure in the northern Gulf of Mexico had winds of 30-35 mph to the northeast and southeast of its center (sustained 35 mph wind speed would qualify the low as a tropical storm). However, NHC said significant development of the system was unlikely as it moved generally northwestward from a position about 200 miles southeast of New Orleans. Landfall was anticipated “sometime tomorrow [Wednesday],” the agency said.

For the next business week (Nov. 10-14), the National Weather Service predicts below normal temperatures for Maine and nearly all territory west of the Rocky Mountains Front Range. It looks for above normal readings south and east of a curvy line from New Jersey through southern New Mexico.

“The nation’s Indian Summer episode is coming to a screeching halt” as November’s first cold surge slides toward the South and East, Weather 2000 said in a Tuesday advisory. “…afternoon temperatures [were] only in the 30s down in Kansas today, and the season’s first real snowpack [is] being laid from Montana down to Nebraska and across to Wisconsin,” the consulting firm continued. “In much the same way that the mild weather during the second week of October did little to impact overall net monthly results, we’re seeing how quickly and dramatically some mild weather to kick off November can be washed away.

“With no pun intended, hemispheric patterns which allow for cold air intrusions from Canada can really start to ‘snowball’ once we have true arctic and polar air developed west and south of the Hudson Bay, along with the associated accumulating snowfall. We’re already ahead of last year’s pace snow coverage extent over the north central U.S., and well ahead of November 2000’s pace. As the forecast tables clearly indicate, more cool air is on the way for the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Mississippi/Ohio/Tennessee Valleys, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. And keep in mind that these are departures from rapidly cooling climatological averages for this time of year to begin with. By mid-month, those who draw conclusions about the month as a whole will have very different opinions than those who did so prematurely after the first few balmy days.”

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