Investing.com - Natural gas carried Monday's losses into Tuesday after updated weather-forecasting models continued to call for below-normal temperatures to make their way across parts of the eastern half of the U.S. in the coming days.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas futures for delivery in August traded at $3.800 per million British thermal units during U.S. trading, down 1.29%. The commodity hit a session high of $3.862 and a low of $3.789.
The August contract settled down 2.58% on Monday to end at $3.849 per million British thermal units.
Natural gas futures were likely to find support at $3.741 per million British thermal units, the low from Nov. 26, 2013, and resistance at $3.893, Monday's high.
Natural gas prices took a dive after weather-forecasting services predicted a summertime cool snap to make its way across parts of the heavily-populated Midwest and northeastern U.S. over the next severl days.
"Fresh weather data continues to stream in, and it's still on track with a series of cooler Canadian weather systems impacting much of the central and eastern U.S. during the last week of July. The first system will weaken the ridge later this week and open the door for a more impressive cool blast that develops from the merging of two weather systems," Natgasweather.com reported in its mid-day update on Tuesday.
"This will create a fairly impressive massive trough of low pressure that will cover all of the eastern U.S. by next Tuesday. This will again bring very comfortable 70s and lower 80s to many regions, with 60s again over the extreme north."
Demand for natural gas tends drop when temperatures fall in the summer, as households throttle back on their air conditioners.
Supply uncertainty weighed on the commodity as well.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report on July 17 that natural gas storage in the U.S. rose by 107 billion cubic feet during the week before last, well above expectations for an increase of 98 billion cubic feet. The five-year average change for the week is an increase of 65 billion cubic feet.
Injections of gas into storage have surpassed the five-year average for 13 consecutive weeks.
Total U.S. natural gas storage stood at 2.129 trillion cubic feet as of last week, narrowing the deficit to the five-year average to 25.5%, down from a record 54.7% at the end of March.
The EIA's next storage report is slated for release at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday.
Elsewhere on the NYMEX, light sweet crude oil futures for delivery in September were down 0.41% at $102.44 a barrel, while heating oil for August delivery were up 0.03% at $2.8596 per gallon.