Jan 23, 2007 news story titled US GAS: More Cold Weather Forecasts Boost Market.
Most of December and the first half of January contained above normal temps and above normal rainfall with below normal snowfall.
For the past week now, we've had typical northern Ohio January weather: cold no snow, then a little warm up, then cold with a little snow. "Little" being about an inch of snow.
The meteorological winter is Dec 1 through Feb 28 (or 29). I suppose a couple weeks of normal or below normal temps will somehow offset weeks of unseasonably mild weather.
Natural gas futures rose Tuesday, with traders covering positions on forecasts of persisting cold winter in the U.S. Midwest, likely increasing demand for gas as heating fuel.
Front-month February natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $7.597 a million British thermal units, up 27.8 cents.
The last time the market closed higher was Dec. 14 at $7.673/MMBtu. Weather forecasts released Thursday suggested that the cold weather expected to hit the U.S. Midwest between Jan. 28 and Feb. 1 will now persist longer than previously expected. One model run by meteorologists at MDA's EarthSat Weather Group in Rockville, Md., forecasts "the coldest outbreak in years" for large parts of the U.S. between Feb. 2-6.