After some notable swings in after hours trading, natural gas futures hovered close to even in early trading Friday as forecasters highlighted volatility in the weather data. The December Nymex contract was up 3.7 cents to $4.939/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

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Weather models as of early Friday had been “all over the place” in terms of projecting the temperature outlook, according to Bespoke Weather Services.

“It appeared as though the weather models were starting to sniff out a path in the warmer direction yesterday afternoon into the evening,” Bespoke said. This carried over into the overnight run of the American dataset, “which, while not lowering forecast demand much, definitely implied a pattern that could evolve warmer.”

The European model, on the other hand,...