Weather ‘Emphatically Bearish’ as Natural Gas Futures Extend Slide Early

With declining heating demand expectations in the latest forecasts pointing to an underwhelming start to winter, natural gas futures continued to fade in early trading Friday.

Adding to a string of day/day losses going back to last week, the November Nymex contract was down 30.7 cents to $5.051/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET. December was off 31.7 cents to $5.521.

Following warmer overnight trends, the updated 15-day temperature outlook was “emphatically bearish,” NatGasWeather said early Friday.

The American model dropped close to 30 heating degree days (HDD) from its projections over the prior 24 hours, while the European model, already warmer than its American counterpart, dropped 10 HDD in its overnight run, according to the firm.

“The pattern this weekend into...