Cash prices continued to be propelled upward Tuesday by an unseasonably late blast of winter weather in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. that even sent a touch of mild morning chill far enough south to be felt by traders in Houston.

For a change all regions were more or less on the same price firmness page, without any particular market being conspicuous for unusually large increases or decreases due to transport or other special conditions.

Virtually all of Tuesday’s gains ranged from about a dime to half a dollar, although the largest ones of 30 cents or more tended to be concentrated in the Northeast and San Juan/Rockies markets.

Sources indicated that market direction may be divided along geographic lines Wednesday. Although he didn’t expect further advances of nearly half a dollar in the Northeast, an area utility buyer said he expected market-area prices to keep creeping up for a while longer. “I don’t think we’ll get any substantial warm-up until early next week,” he said. “We’re due for [temperatures in] the 40s by the weekend, but that’s still colder than usual for this time of year. We were kind of hoping winter was already over, but so much for that hope.”

The buyer said his utility was among the ones who had gotten a head start on storage injections during late March, “but now we’ve had to start withdrawing again.” He’s essentially back to square one with his storage account, having withdrawn since late last week approximately the same amount that had been injected prior to the traditional April 1 start of injection season. At least the weekend switch to Daylight Savings Time has helped a bit by spreading daily load more to the off-peak hours, he said.

Another suggestion of continued firm pricing in the Northeast came from critical operating condition notices posted Tuesday afternoon by pipeline affiliates Texas Eastern and Algonquin. A cold front that entered their service territories at the beginning of the week resulted in strong demand, they said. “Temperatures for gas day Monday…were lower than forecast, resulting in takes in excess of scheduled quantities. Linepack is now at a level, when combined with seasonably low inventory withdrawal capability, [that] leaves no operational flexibility to manage due-pipe daily imbalances.” Both pipes vowed to use the provisions of their tariffs as necessary “to maintain system integrity and the ability to meet firm obligations.”

But weather support for prices is waning outside the Northeast. Although freeze warnings remained in effect through Tuesday night for eastern Kansas and western Missouri, according to The Weather Channel, much of the Midcontinent/Midwest was due to warm up Wednesday with some parts hitting highs around 70 degrees. Tuesday was the region’s peak day for prices and “they will be going down Wednesday,” a marketer confidently predicted. One good reason for expecting softness is that Tuesday’s quotes “moved down hard” in late deals, he said, reporting that Chicago citygates were around $5.50 in the early going but down about a quarter to the $5.20s at the end.

The marketer said he was aware of some customers making storage withdrawals in recent days, but thinks most people will be back in injection mode in another day or two.

A Southwest trader also reported a downward trend in late prices. After a couple of initial San Juan-Bondad purchases in the mid $4.30s, he was able to pick up his last package for about 15 cents less. However, Southwest temperatures should be getting up to 90 degrees by the end of week, which might stir up some air conditioning load, he said.

April is feeling more like February for most, New York City-based Weather 2000 said in a Tuesday advisory. “Going down as the winter that never ended, cold weather and snowstorms continue to lash the northern U.S., now into the second week of April. Afternoon temperatures [Monday] were more than 20 degrees below normal for the Plains, Midwest, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast! Meanwhile, fresh snows were dumped across the northern tier, culminating in a half-foot blizzard for the New York metro area (its largest April snowstorm in 21 years)…

“Towards the end of this past March, computer models, NWS [National Weather Service] outlooks and other forecasters were once again alluding to the tremendous warmth that was supposed to engulf the nation for April. Specifically, the GFS Model (formerly the MRF), which many short-term forecasters rely on, predicted some extremely mild temperatures for April, which many others jumped on erroneously. Look at the example below, which demonstrates the GFS model run on April 1st, and the corresponding mild max temperatures it predicted for New York (Newark Airport) versus how cold it actually was.

GFS Actual

“The bottom line is, the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions are experiencing a very cold April, while the Northeast is having a near-record cold April to date thus far. Temperature volatility is still, and will be, present especially across the central and mid-latitude eastern U.S., with large week-to-week swings…Across portions of the deep South, residents could think it’s May. But as we advised, contrary to NWS outlooks and model output, the northern population hubs that still tally significant HDD [heating degree-day] totals in April have already accumulated more than half their typical April monthly totals only through the first seven days of the month.”

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