Investing.com - U.S. natural gas futures rose for the second day in a row on Wednesday, reaching the strongest level since the end of January as traders monitored shifting weather forecasts to assess the outlook for early-spring demand and supply levels.
U.S. natural gas for May delivery touched a daily peak of $3.348 per million British thermal units, the most since January 27. It was last at $3.338 by 9:10AM ET (13:10GMT), up 4.5 cents, or around 1.4%.
Prices of the heating fuel rallied 16.5 cents, or more about 5.3%, on Tuesday, despite there being no bullish weather trends to justify such a move.
Overall, an active spring pattern is expected the next two weeks across most parts of the U.S. with swings in demand between slightly lighter and stronger than normal every few days, according to forecasters at NatGasWeather.com.
Natural gas prices have closely tracked weather forecasts in recent weeks, as traders try to gauge the impact of shifting forecasts on early-spring demand.
Gas use typically hits a seasonal low with spring's mild temperatures, before warmer weather increases demand for gas-fired electricity generation to power air conditioning.
Nearly 50% of all U.S. households use gas for heating.
Meanwhile, market participants looked ahead to weekly storage data due on Thursday, which is expected to show a build of 10 billion cubic feet in the week ended March 31.
That compares with a withdrawal of 43 billion cubic feet in the preceding week, a gain of 12 billion a year earlier and a five-year average drop of 13 billion cubic feet.
Total natural gas in storage currently stands at 2.049 trillion cubic feet, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 17.1% lower than levels at this time a year ago but 12.2% above the five-year average for this time of year.