Natural gas futures continued to climb early Tuesday as weather models still showed strong heat across the eastern United States next week. A large production decline, though viewed as likely temporary, also contributed to the early gains. The September Nymex gas futures contract was trading at around $3.994, up 5.9 cents, at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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As for the weather data, the overnight models changed only slightly, according to NatGasWeather. The American and European data each saw a difference of less than 2 cooling degree days (CDD) for the coming 15 days compared to Monday’s data. As important, the models remained “quite hot” with the U.S. pattern for Saturday through Aug. 15.

“In fact, the data might have gotten too hot for next week, with the potential to give back a...