Natural gas futures advanced Tuesday on forecasts for colder weather and a bullish withdrawal from storage. Improved liquefied natural gas (LNG) levels added a dose of optimism.

storage snapshot dec 18

The January Nymex contract climbed 7.5 cents day/day and settled at $2.780/MMBtu. February rose 6.0 cents to $2.749.

NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. rose 5.5 cents to $2.870.  

Looking to the end of December, colder trends from the European weather model overnight helped drive trading early Tuesday, NatGasWeather said, and futures sustained the momentum throughout the day. 

While the American model held on to a milder outlook, the European dataset pointed to a substantial stretch of freezing temperatures over the Dec. 29-Jan. 3 timeframe.

“Our verification data shows” the European model...