Just when you thought it was safe to close the books on the 2005 hurricane season and turn your attention towards the winter heating season, Tropical Storm Wilma, the record-tying twenty-first storm of the season has formed southeast of Grand Cayman. With Wilma’s path still very uncertain, the natural gas futures market spooked higher in Nymex’s Sunday Access session and then retained those gains through Monday’s regular session, ultimately settling at $13.887, 66.8 cents higher than last Friday’s close.

November natural gas opened Monday at $13.85 and soon after notched its $13.90 high for the day. After falling no lower than $13.62, the prompt month hit $13.90 once again late in the session before closing.

While the 2005 hurricane season has had the most named storms, the greatest number of storms in a single season was 21 in 1933 — 20 years before names were assigned. Hurricane statistics date back to 1851. With the name list for 2005 now exhausted in the Atlantic, additional system formations before the season end at the conclusion of November will be assigned Greek alphabet names, beginning with Alpha.

The National Hurricane Center said late Monday afternoon that Wilma was “poised to strengthen.” As of 5 p.m. EDT, Wilma was approximately 255 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman.

Tropical Storm Wilma couldn’t come at a worse time as the industry enters the winter heating season and continues to struggle to return production from pre-Hurricane Katrina and Rita levels. Gulf gas production normally averages 10 Bcf/d, and as of Monday, the Minerals Management Service reported that 5.498 Bcf/d remained shut-in from Katrina and Rita. Thus just 45% of Gulf production is back online when stockpiles are being built for winter heating.

“The hurricane season of 2005 appears as if it will end with a bang and not a whimper,” said Ed Kennedy of Commercial Brokerage Corp. in Miami. “Some of the forecasters are calling for Wilma to make its way over Tampa, FL and then up the East Coast next week. Other models are calling for different paths, including over the Yucatan and into northern Mexico.

Kennedy said the problem is this storm is moving so slowly, so it is hard to tell at this point just where it will go. He noted that it is a matter of which front going across is going to pick it up. “Until there is some sort of certitude on the path, I think the natural gas futures market is going to be very nervous and will continue to trade in these areas.

“That is what we saw Monday, strength on fear and lack of selling on fear,” Kennedy added. “In addition to Wilma concerns, there are two additional systems behind the tropical storm. No one is seriously going to sell this market. If you buy it, you’re risking a buck to a buck-and-a-half. As soon as we get verification from two or three more of the models that Wilma is going over Florida, this market is going to come down…and come down hard. That won’t be until midweek probably.”

Weather 2000 warned Monday that Wilma shouldn’t be taken for granted, which tends to happen with storms later in the season. “Hurricanes can still get quite ferocious in late October, so don’t ignore them,” the forecasting firm said, noting that Hurricane Mitch in 1998 obtained a 908 mb pressure and 180 mph winds (Category Five) before devastating Honduras.

“Wilma is enjoying the very warm waters and the tropical environment of the Western Caribbean, and becoming better organized, more symmetrical, and intense,” Weather 2000 said. “There are very high odds that Wilma will obtain hurricane status within two days.”

The forecasting firm warned that steering currents over the Western Caribbean are weak, so Wilma will not likely be going anywhere very fast. The storm may technically still be within the Caribbean by the end of the week, which only provides more time for it to get healthier and stronger, the company said.

“Due to her slow movement, prospects beyond the Caribbean are several days away and open to a variety of scenarios,” Weather 2000 said. “The multitude of Internet sites have allowed non-meteorologists to ‘make their own forecast’ based on computer model paths, which has recently been proven to be quite dangerous. This is currently demonstrated in the black and white computer model solutions which either drive Wilma west into Central America or north into Cuba, unfortunately convincing people to exclude very real Gulf of Mexico possibilities.”

Weather 2000 warned that some other forecast services have been quick to jump on the “Up and Away” path scenario, which basically lifts up Wilma and pushes it to the Northeast into Southern Florida. “While this is certainly plausible, we remind everyone of the ‘Southwestward Drift’ we saw with Katrina post Florida, which confounded models so. While remaining over open waters is the most ideal path for tropical storms, Wilma heading toward, or over, the Yucatan is a much more alarming U.S./Gulf situation than if Wilma was to drive North into Cuba. For one, the Yucatan in much less Mountainous than Cuba, and secondly, this opens up the door to Western-Half Gulf entry.”

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