With the eastern South poised to become the next target of relatively sizeable amounts of snow and more of it expected to return to the upper East Coast early next week, most of the cash market realized small gains Thursday.

Northeast pricing was split, with three New England citygates seeing losses of about 30 cents each. They were joined by much smaller declines of C2-4 cents or so in Western Canada and at one Midcontinent point. The rest of the Northeast participated in overall quotes that were flat to about 15 cents higher, with the non-New York pool of Transco Zone 6 leading the moderate ascent. A large majority of gains were in single digits.

Following essentially neutral guidance from the scant 0.2-cent gain by March futures Wednesday, the cash market will have more substantive prior-day screen support Friday after the prompt-month contract rose 10.4 cents Thursday (see related story).

With the recent heavy snowfalls having let up for the most part Thursday in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the forecast was for cold temperatures but mostly dry conditions other than occasional flurries going into the weekend. The relief won’t last long, however. On Monday and Tuesday next week a “Midwest Clipper” snowstorm will be arriving, according to The Weather Channel (TWC), increasing snowfall again across the Virginias, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

For the time being, although it will not be nearly as severe as what recently happened to the north along the coast, the next relatively big snowfall is due Friday in the eastern half of the Deep South, TWC said. Accumulations from southern Mississippi to central Georgia could be in the range of three to six inches, with a few locations possibly even topping six inches.

Conditions were staying cold but mostly dry toward the western end of the South, with the Midwest expected to see even colder but still mostly dry weather.

In the West, snow and sub-freezing lows will remain largely confined to Western Canada and the mountain areas south of the border. Seasonal temperatures will continue to prevail in much of the region.

A couple of new cold weather-related pipeline constraints were being instated (see Transportation Notes) but they remained relatively few considering the record-breaking blizzards along much of the East Coast and sub-freezing lows occupying much of the South and Midwest through the Midcontinent and Upper Plains into the Rockies. MRT went the other way in lifting a System Protection Warning.

Although the SoCal citygate rose nearly a nickel, IntercontinentalExchange reported that volumes traded there on its online system had dropped substantially from 590,200 MMBtu for Thursday flows to 499,800 MMBtu Friday.

Southern LNG said sendout remained at less than 50% of operational capacity at its Elba Island terminal off the coast of Georgia. Only 420,602 MMBtu was scheduled to be moved Thursday to its SLNG Delivery Group out a total location capacity of 1,021,000 MMBtu, leaving 600,398 MMBtu available, the company said.

Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans is expecting a storage pull of 165 Bcf to be reported for the week ending Feb. 5, acknowledging that his estimate is well below those in newswire surveys showing a consensus in the low 180s Bcf. Evans also projected withdrawals of 175 Bcf and 155 Bcf for the weeks ending Feb. 12 and Feb. 19, respectively.

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