Cash prices appeared to disregard fresh winter storms bringing heavy snow to the Midwest through the Northeast and already hard-hit Mid-Atlantic, and lows around freezing or less spreading into much of the South (with more of the same due Wednesday in each instance), in falling at virtually all points Tuesday. To at least one source, the previous day’s 11.4-cent decline by March futures apparently had more influence on the cash market than weather forecasts.

An increase of about a dime at the Florida citygate (where Florida Gas Transmission continued an Overage Alert Day) was the sole exception to downturns ranging from a little less than a dime to about 90 cents. Questar was the only point not seeing a double-digit decline.

The cash market will continue to have negative prior-day futures guidance Wednesday after the prompt-month contract began Tuesday slightly higher but ended with a loss of 11.1 cents in a near-repeat of the Monday market (see related story).

Northeast citygates continued to record the biggest drops, although they were considerably smaller Tuesday than Monday’s triple-digit plunges.

The Mid-Atlantic was still attempting to dig out from under the bountiful snowfall that began late last week, but it could expect no relief from Mother Nature. More frozen precipitation was already on the way Tuesday, and heavy snow combined with wind gusts of more than 40 mph would produce blizzard conditions from near Washington, DC, northeast through southern New England Wednesday before some letup could be expected late that day, The Weather Channel said.

Meanwhile, bottom-end temperatures in the 20s, teens, single digits and occasionally zero or lower were still in the Wednesday forecast for the Midwest through the Upper Plains, and lows would continue to dip to around freezing or lower in most of the South.

The status quo remained in effect for the West: frigid conditions in the Rockies and Western Canada, but merely chilly temperatures in the rest of the region.

The Algonquin citygate slipped by about half a dollar, but Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) reported a jump in volumes traded there on its online system from 102,100 MMBtu Monday to 141,200 MMBtu Tuesday. However, Transco Zone 6-New York (down a little more than 85 cents) went sharply the other way, ICE said, with Monday’s volume of 226,400 MMBtu dropping to 177,700 MMBtu Tuesday.

Noting that its normal system-weighted temperature at this time of year is 20 degrees, Northern Natural Gas said it expected averages to vary between 10 and 18 from Tuesday through Friday, with the higher numbers due nearer the end of the week.

Southern Natural Gas continued to reflect a storage withdrawal pace exceeding those of the past two years. It said that as of last Thursday its inventory of 32.6 Bcf was 54% of total capacity of 60 Bcf. That compared with 38.6 Bcf (64%) on Feb. 5, 2009 and 34.4 Bcf (57%) on Feb. 7, 2008.

“Are they ignoring the weather?” a western source mused in assessing Tuesday’s softness in cash and futures. The only thing he could figure was that Monday’s futures fall was more important to traders than the expectations of frigid conditions continuing in much of North America through at least Wednesday. He said his company’s forecasting service was seeing a “reset” in March of February weather conditions.

Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. is projecting a storage withdrawal of 175 Bcf to be reported for the week ending Feb. 5.

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