While not quite the “crash” that some had seen as possible, prices did fall substantially in Friday’s trading for the holiday weekend. Nearly all declines were between about a dime and 20 cents, but a few Northeast citygates took even bigger hits while Florida citygates were flat.

The softening occurred despite some of the strongest fundamental weather support in some time. Much of the Midwest was experiencing its coldest temperatures of the season so far, according to The Weather Channel, and frigid conditions were expected to last through at least Saturday in the Midwest and Northeast. Even the upper South was due to get some freezing rain and maybe snow.

But the cash market performance had largely been ordained in advance by Thursday’s screen dive, sources said. In addition, there was the load dropoff of a long weekend to consider, along with the huge storage overhang that must always be weighing on traders’ minds. And a Northeast utility buyer said temperatures would start warming there on Sunday.

Nearly all deals were done through Tuesday to take account of Monday’s observation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, even though many in the trading community expected to put in at least partial days at the office Monday. It’s mostly expected to be a taking-care-of-paperwork occasion, although a Calgary source said there would be a fair amount of new intra-Alberta business being done there. A marketer in Oklahoma said he and coworkers would primarily come in just to check gas flows. At least one East Coast utility won’t take a holiday, but a trader reported that virtually all of the Chicago-area utilities would be closed Monday.

A Calgary-based producer reported an exception to the through-Tuesday norm. Although her Chicago citygate price remained unchanged at $2.18, she had to make the sale in Saturday-Monday and Tuesday-only segments, reducing the Tuesday volume by nearly 1.5 MMcf/d. That’s because Alliance Pipeline was allotting firm shippers 25% Authorized Overrun Service over the weekend but cutting it to 20% Tuesday, she explained.

A western marketer said supplies will be a little short at Opal Tuesday and Wednesday due to some tie-in work at the upstream Jonah Field. But he estimated the impact at only 35 MMcf/d being allocated across all producers in the field, saying that would hardly make or break the market.

Bullish types got no encouragement Friday from the National Weather Service. Starting Thursday the NWS projects the entire eastern two-thirds of the U.S. being blanketed in above normal temperatures through the weekend.

Much further down the line, a Gulf Coast producer sees potential price-boosting this summer from the return of El Nino. With the weather phenomenon in effect, “we could have more air conditioning load than normal,” he said. “The hotter summer might offset some of the loss of heating load this winter. But if El Nino is mild, there is no telling.” March might be really sloppy price-wise, the producer concluded.

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