Ensemble models diverge very little with climatological models during the week after Christmas day. Both the climate and dynamical ensemble models suggest above normal temperatures over much of the northern tier of states east of the Rockies and below normal over the southern tier from the inter-mountain south, through Texas, along the Gulf coast states and into Fl, with a near to slightly below normal West. There is some evidence in a few of the shorter range models of ridge building over east Asia and a westward regression of the Alueutian low, on or within a day of Christmas day. If this is the case, the strong ridge that has kept conditions cool and blocked most precipitation from the NW will move west, allowing colder air to dig into the US along the Rockies and eventually spread east. . So there is a possibility that the current general cool far-west - warm northeast-cool south pattern will shift during the last week of the month.

This week generally cool over the west and cool at first but warming over the NE early as the main storm track continues to run thru Canada. Another Canadian cold front will drop into the NE early Tuesday but it will stall just south of the Great Lakes then push back N later in the week. A weak low currently over Southern California will lift to the NE and bring a swath of rain and snow thru the 4 corners states and Texas-OK-and much of the SE thru the first half of the week, then into the Ohio Valley and then the NE late Wed-Thursday. The N Texas panhandle region and much of KS could see near Blizzard conditions from the storm Monday and Tuesday. A cold front behind this system will usher in quite cool air into the Ohio Valley Friday morning and off the eastern Seaboard later in the day, bringing the chance of a few light flurries to much of the N East and OH valley Christmas eve.

Relatively warm weather over much of the NE last week probably kept demand relatively low for NG and so this week will see a lower than seasonable withdrawl announced on Thursday. The following Thursday (Dec 29th) will see an near-seasonable withdrawl. What happens afterward depends on how the broad scale jet stream pattern behaves. If it continues as forecast, this will be a relatively low demand season for NG.