As traders contemplated warmer forecast trends and a growing storage cushion amid recent milder-than-normal heating demand, natural gas futures skidded lower early Friday. The January Nymex contract was off 5.4 cents to $3.712/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

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After a number of “back-and-forth shifts,” the latest move in the weather models as of early Friday was in the warmer direction, according to Bespoke Weather Services.

Models pulled back on the amount of cold that would find its way into the Lower 48 in the medium range outlook, a reversal of trends from 24 hours earlier, the firm said.

“Casting aside the noise from run-to-run changes, the overall theme remains the same, with a material step change in the pattern from high-end warm to something closer to normal on the...