With snowstorms remaining in the regional forecast and highs in the 20s due Tuesday in New England and much of New York state, most Northeast citygates skyrocketed by multi-dollar amounts Monday to as high as $22.75 in Transco Zone 6’s New York City pool. However, such super-strength was not matched anywhere else even though the Midwest also faces highs in the 20s or less Tuesday. A few small gains outside the Northeast were heavily outweighed by declines.

A majority of points were flat to down about 35 cents. The largest losses tended to be concentrated in Louisiana, the Midwest and Rockies/Pacific Northwest. Gains ranged from a couple of pennies to a little more than $9.

Contributing to the market’s overall bearishness were the 15-cent drop by January futures last Friday, the below-expectations storage pull reported for the week ending Nov. 23 and the fact that a benign 2007 hurricane season had ended Friday.

Although Algonquin citygates didn’t get any higher than $20, they averaged about $3.45 more than Transco Zone 6-NYC. Two other points serving the New England market, Iroquois Zone 2 and Dracut, also had averages exceeding that of the New York City pool. Texas Eastern M-3 was the only Northeast citygate failing to record a dollar-plus gain and to achieve a quadruple-digit average.

Weather in the South, Midcontinent and much of the West will generally range from cool to cold Tuesday but rarely will approach the frigid conditions expected in the Midwest and Northeast. Even Denver in the Rockies is predicted to peak in the mid to high 60s, although its overnight low will be only a few degrees above freezing.

An Alberta clipper is about to move through the Midwest, bringing snow to the upper section of the region Tuesday and to the Ohio Valley Wednesday, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). The clipper will proceed into the Northeast Wednesday, dragging lake-effect snows behind it, TWC said.

A Midwest utility buyer said the thermometer was reaching only the mid to upper 30s at mid-afternoon Monday, but that represented a bit of moderation from colder weather over the weekend. “My gut feeling” is that the Midwest wasn’t seeing the huge price run-ups that the Northeast did because there’s such an abundance of storage in his region, the buyer said. NGPL, Northern Natural and ANR all have huge storage operations that Midwest utilities can access, he noted, and of course the two big Michigan LDCs also have extensive storage.

Even though Rockies gas isn’t nearly as cheap as it used to be, especially after December first-of-month index spikes that were measured in triple digits, the buyer said he is still looking forward to adding it to his company’s supply mix after Rockies Express West starts bringing it to Midcontinent interconnects in the last half of December (see Daily GPI, Nov. 16).

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