Western spikes led an overall rally by the cash market Monday as cooling load was ample in Eastern Canada and much of the U.S. The previous Thursday’s 18.8-cent gain by August futures and the return of industrial demand from a long holiday weekend absence were also bullish factors.

Losses of 2-3 cents to as much as about $1.45 were most common in the Gulf Coast. Otherwise cash quotes ranged from flat to nearly $1.20 higher.

The return of cash price strength is likely to be short-lived after August natural gas futures reacted to crude oil weakness and a stronger U.S. by plunging 60 cents (see related story), although western heat may keep a price floor under some points in that region Tuesday.

Bertha was merely a tropical storm when gas traders left for the Independence Day holiday weekend, but it had become a full-blown hurricane when they returned to their offices Monday morning and by that afternoon was ranked as a major (Category Three or greater) storm with 115 mph winds, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Bertha’s position Monday afternoon about 730 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and its west-northwest movement appeared to leave a chance of it entering the Gulf of Mexico, but the NHC expected Bertha to make a gradual turn toward the northwest and be poised to strike Bermuda Saturday morning.

The formation of Bertha in early July lends some credence to forecasts of a hurricane season that will be busier than normal. “Historically, this is the earliest in the season that a hurricane has formed so far east in the Atlantic since 1886, and exemplifies how warm and conducive [to storm development] the eastern Atlantic environment [is] this year,” said the Weather 2000 consulting firm. “Bertha is strengthening and gradually curving out into the open Atlantic (north of the Caribbean) as she was always supposed to, but she will play a key role in U.S. weather even though she is [thousands] of miles away. Bertha’s hurricane outflow/divergence will force subsidence to her north, reinforcing the western Atlantic subtropical ridging that has been the main culprit behind the historically hot/sultry East Coast summer.”

Excess supply issues that had weighed down western prices Thursday in the form of high-linepack OFOs by PG&E and SoCalGas were removed Monday after both utilities allowed the OFOs to expire during the weekend (see Transportation Notes). The Southern California border more than made up for Thursday’s 94-cent dive by rebounding about $1.05 Monday, while the PG&E citygate also offset Thursday’s loss with a more sedate increase of 40 cents or so. Thermometer readings in the mid 100s will range from interior California through the desert Southwest Tuesday.

On the other side of the U.S. Florida Gas Transmission was warning market-area customers of the possibility of an Overage Alert Day being issued due to hot weather in Florida.

Highs in the 90s will be common in the South Tuesday, while much of the Northeast and Midwest is expect to see temperatures peak in the mid to upper 80s. Even the Pacific Northwest will have substantive cooling load as Portland, OR, is forecast to reach 90 degrees.

It was a tale of two Canadas in the forecast for Tuesday. In the eastern end Toronto is reaching the mid 80s, but to the west the forecast calls for only the mid 60s in Calgary.

It was a “very slow” day Monday to a Gulf Coast trader who added that it “feels like a Friday.” High temperatures are supposed to get close to 100 degrees in some parts of Texas this week, which translates into plentiful power generation demand for air conditioning, she said.

Prices fell hard near the end of trading Monday as the screen tanked, the trader said. It’s safe to assume that with natural gas futures so weak, physical numbers will be taking big hits Tuesday, she said. She noted that crude oil futures rebounded fairly strongly from their low point, “but not so much natural gas.”

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