Natural gas futures were trading slightly higher early Wednesday as updated forecasts continued to point to a milder August pattern following the intense heat experienced earlier in the summer. 

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The September Nymex contract was up 3.1 cents to $7.864/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

The latest weather model runs maintained cooler trends that developed over the weekend, according to NatGasWeather.

Models showed “demand falling to seasonal levels late this week through next week,” particularly in the European model, “which is preferred over the hot-biased” American dataset, the firm said.

“With the European model trending cooler over the weekend, then further cooler the past few days, it’s now forecasting a rather neutral pattern much of the next 15-days, if not a...