Friday, January 18, 2013

Natural Gas: "Arctic Blast Set to Freeze New York and Chicago Next Week"

Following up on yesterday's "Natural Gas Hits a New High for This Move on Storage Report":
The sentiment from Monday's "Natural Gas: Baby It's (Gonna Be) Cold Outside" is still operative through the weekend, maybe to mid week, but then being long gets tricky. It's all good though as we have The Widowmaker to look forward to....
Here's the Bloomberg story I was going for when posting "U.S. Climate Prediction Center: U.S. Northeast May Be Warmer Than Normal February Through April":
A week-long blast of Arctic air promises to grip the U.S. Midwest and Northeast next week, sending temperatures below freezing from Chicago to New York City and boosting energy demand.

The cold that will arrive in the upper Midwest this weekend is expected to start pushing temperatures down in Chicago starting on Jan. 21, according to MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Lows are expected to reach 3 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 16 Celsius) in Chicago on Jan. 22, and the next day New York may fall to 16, while Boston reaches 12, Philadelphia 15 and Washington 18, according to MDA.
“All signs are pointing toward a strong blast of cold air surging southward through the eastern half of North America next week,” said Bob Haas, a meteorologist at MDA. “Sharp increases in heating demand to levels we haven’t seen so far this winter, or last winter, should come along with it.”

Temperatures are forecast to be 8 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 to 8.3 Celsius) below normal across the Midwest, Northeast, Ontario and Quebec from Jan. 20 to 24, said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. The temperature may reach below zero across a large part of the Midwest, including Chicago, during the same time frame, Rogers said.

Intensive Cold “Next week’s impressive cold is intensified in our forecasts today for the Midwest and South,” Rogers said in a note to clients. “The models are in excellent agreement on the event and suggest even colder readings than we currently show at the peak.”...MORE