Prices continued to rise Monday at all but a few western and Midcontinent points based on unseasonably cool temperatures returning to the forecast in much of the Midwest and Northeast, mid-90s highs in the desert Southwest, the previous Friday’s 17.3-cent increase by May futures and the return of industrial load from its usual weekend decline.

Flat to nearly 20 cents lower quotes for CenterPoint, the San Juan Basin and two Rockies points extended mixed price movement for yet another day. A majority of the cash market realized gains ranging from a couple of pennies to a little more than 35 cents. Northeast citygates tended to see most of the largest upticks, while the smallest ones were concentrated in the Midcontinent and Rockies.

One weather development that could have been deemed as bearish apparently had little price impact. A weekend cold front wiped out just about all cooling load that remained in the South, except for 80s highs predicted for Tuesday in Florida and South Texas.

Few sections of the Midwest and Northeast could expect to get above the 40s and 50s Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel. Most of the West will range from fairly comfortable to warm, the forecasting service said, but it will be chilly in the Pacific Northwest and mountain-area snow flurries are possible in the northern Rockies.

Tuesday’s cash prices will again have substantive prior-day screen support after expiring May natural gas futures went off the board at $11.280, up 31.7 cents. The contract’s strength throughout most of April portends big advances in May first-of-month indexes, as its settlement is $1.702 above where April futures ended.

Neither a high-inventory OFO by PG&E nor an Overage Alert Day by Florida Gas Transmission — both issued during the weekend — survived into Monday (see Transportation Notes).

A Northeast utility buyer said local weather had been mild through the weekend. but it was starting to get chilly again Monday and could be expected to remain that way until around the coming weekend. He was hopeful that this week will mark the area’s last cold spell until fall arrives.

Noting that bidweek prices are “up big” again the buyer said it seems that the weather forecasters have been making wrong predictions of milder-than-normal temperatures for three straight months, and then February, March and April turned out to be colder than expected.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said temperatures in her city were not getting above the 40s Monday after a cold front arrived to quash previously moderate conditions as the weekend began. “I needed to turn the furnace on” for a short while Monday morning, she said, but there should be a warming trend under way by Thursday.

The marketer said last-day settlement basis had yielded the equivalent fixed prices of $11.67 for Consumers Energy and $11.71 for MichCon.

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