Milder trending weather model runs put pressure on natural gas futures in early trading Wednesday, threatening to plunge prices back below the psychological $5 barrier. The December Nymex contract was down 17.1 cents to $5.006/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET.

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Forecasts shifted warmer overnight, mostly attributable to changes in the American model, according to Bespoke Weather Services. 

The latest outlook from the European dataset “was essentially flat to yesterday afternoon’s warmer run, although the ending looked a little less threatening as far as cold risk is concerned,” Bespoke said. 

Day-to-day shifts in the weather model runs have thus far been unable to push the temperature outlook away from a variable, near-normal pattern overall, according to the...