Weather Models Disagree on February Cold as Natural Gas Futures Skid Lower Early

Uncertainty over the extent winter chills into the month of February put downward pressure on natural gas futures in early trading Tuesday. The February Nymex contract was off 5.6 cents to $3.971/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET. March was off 3.8 cents to $3.837.

The European weather model shed heating demand from the outlook overnight for the first few days of February, reversing colder trends from Monday afternoon, according to NatGasWeather. 

The European and American models also continued to diverge on the extent of cold arriving Feb. 4-7, suggesting the pattern during this period “might not be quite cold enough to satisfy” traders without better model agreement, the firm added.

“There’s still strong national demand through the coming weekend,” including frigid...