27-March 5: According to the ensembles, generally cool over the west and plains; mild over the SE and eastern seaboard; seasonable over the Great Lakes, NE and Ohio Valley.

This week features a series of Pacific impulses moving through the country with some evidence of a significant shift to a cooler regime by the end of next weekend. A strong storm will exit the SE coast near Cape Hatteras this evening. NE flow behind the storm will keep the NE cool for the next few days but temperatures will moderate thru the week; in fact realtively mild temperatures are in store for most of the lower 48 thru Thursday as the strom track runs thru the northern tier of states. On Thursday, a strong storm will emerge from the central plains and deepen as it heads NE to the Lake Erie area by Friday morning. SE of the low, in the warm sector, temperatures will become very mild along most of the east coast and SE states. The trailing cold front will push very cold air thru the midsection S as far as Arkansas by Saturday morning. A change in the jet stream pattern over the Pacific early next week threatens to push cool to cold air originating from Siberia thru Alaska, across western Canada, and down over much of the mainland US next week, beginning in the West.

Withdrawls 10-16 (to published this thursday by EIA) should be a bit below average, probably like last week at ~ 125 bcf. I don't have much skill at forecasting withdrawl numbers as I haven't had the time to work out a statistical method.