Natural gas surges as weather forecasts see sizzling temps across U.S. (NYSEARCA:UNG)

U.S. natural gas futures jumped above $3 to their highest levels in five months on Tuesday, as weather forecasts called for above-average temperatures in much of the country.

Forecast from the National Weather Service Much of the country showed hotter than normal temperatures The United States east of the Rocky Mountains over the next two weeks, while California and the southwestern United States face continued heat this week.

“Temperatures are expected to be above average for the entire country in the next 10 to 20 days, which will likely increase demand for cooling,” said Victoria Derksen of Schneider Electric. Market monitoring.

Gary Cunningham of Tradition Energy noted that Chicago, New York and Philadelphia will all likely face temperatures above 90 degrees next week, according to the Dow Jones Index.

Nymex natural gas (NG1:COM) for July delivery hit the highest percentage mark for a first-month contract since February 21, ending… +7.6% to $3.129 per million British thermal units, the highest settlement since January 12.

ETFs: (NYSEARCA:UNG), (boiling), (cold), (FCG), (UNL)

“Dip prices have been bought back, just as the bulls have done in the past six weeks,” NatGasWeather.com said. “We think it's best to do that We expect the dips to be bought “The temperature remains impressive in the forecast for the second half of June.”

Cunningham also said the unexpected outage at Chevron's Wheatstone facility in Australia “appears to have brought some Asian hedging into the US markets as they expect increased LNG supplies using US terminals.”