Although cooling load would remain about as strong for Thursday as it was Wednesday, highly negative guidance from the previous day’s 48.2-cent plunge by August futures caused a large majority of cash trading points to fall Wednesday.

Flat to about 30 cents higher quotes at several scattered points kept mixed price movement in play. The overall market recorded losses ranging from a little less than a dime to about 65 cents. Midwest citygates and the Gulf Coast tended to see most of the largest declines.

Chances of a cash rally Thursday are skimpy after Nymex’s August natural gas contract shed another 7.9 cents in the midst of a continued skid by the petroleum product offerings (see related story).

Except for a cooling trend in the Rockies that will take Denver’s daily high from the mid 90s Wednesday to the upper 80s Thursday (with an overnight low around 60), most sections of the U.S. and Canada will see very little variation in temperatures from day to day. One exception is the lower Northeast, where New York City and Philadelphia are forecast to rise from the upper 80s to the low 90s.

Daniel Guertin of Lehman Brothers said a “very warm pattern is developing along the East Coast for the balance of this week, while seasonably warm weather continues across Texas and the Southeast. Strongest warmth should shift westward for next week.”

“The tropics are very busy for the middle of July,” the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in understatement. While Tropical Storm Bertha continued to move southeastward away from Bermuda, the agency noted a gas demand-depressing low-pressure area that was producing “disorganized thunderstorm activity” over the Florida peninsula. The cooling rains should keep the Sunshine State’s gas-fired peaking generators quiet for at least another day or so.

The Windward Islands could expect gusty winds and locally heavy rains Wednesday and Thursday from a low-pressure area about 200 miles to the east, the NHC said. Late Wednesday afternoon it called the system “well organized” and said a reconnaissance aircraft was investigating to see if a tropical depression had formed.

Wait, there’s more. “A tropical wave over the southwestern Caribbean Sea about 300 miles east of Nicaragua is showing some signs of organization,” the NHC said. But Gulf of Mexico energy interests had little to worry about, since the NHC expected the tropical wave to move into Central America late Thursday.

The major screen weakness Tuesday was obviously the chief factor in Wednesday’s cash downturn, a Midwestern marketer said. But he couldn’t help but wonder if the cascading economic woes in the U.S. might not be partially responsible for recent softening of energy prices in general.

It was “warm and muggy” with temperatures hitting the low 90s in much of the Midwest, the marketer continued. However, since much of his company’s client base sees little effect from hot weather, he is just buying a little spot gas every now and then, he said.

Barclays Capital Research analysts Michael Zenker and George Hopley said they expect this week’s storage report to show an injection of 87 Bcf for the week ending July 11, “taking into account a lingering Independence Day holiday effect.”

©Copyright 2008Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.