Winter 2026-2027. Historic Potential

[Stormchaserchuck1]

With inflation, I've figured out the following regarding Energy trading and the coming Winter:

Natural Gas price >$5.00, more likely -NAO Winter

Natural Gas price <$5.00, more likely +NAO Winter

Natural Gas price >$10.00, very high likelihood of -NAO Winter

Natural Gas price <$2.50, very high likelihood of +NAO Winter

Natural Gas is currently trading at $3.13. December '26 contract, $4.01. March '27 contract, $3.21. 

Top 10 Most positive Natural Gas Winters since 1996, relative to inflation trend:

^ Average price per Winter of those years: ~$6.00

Top 12 Most negative Natural Gas Winters since 1996, relative to inflation trend:

^ Average price per Winter of those years: ~$2.60

In January 2026, the price of NG jumped from $3.12 to $7.40 as a really cold pattern set in. This was forecasted ahead of time by the CPC with no market reaction until it was days to weeks away. This cold period was associated with the 4th longest on record (since the early 1900s) that Baltimore had more than 4" of snow on the ground. The price then collapsed back to $3.40 in early February, and $2.80 by late February, and then March 2026 ended up being the warmest month relative to average on record for the CONUS, all time. There is a little lead in the NG price, but also sometimes weather patterns are a surprise. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Deep -PDO continues (time sensitive)

[Ji]

12 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Deep -PDO continues (time sensitive)

lets get that fixed

[Weather Will]

PDO trending in the wrong direction at this time.

[frd]

43 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

PDO trending in the wrong direction at this time.

 

True, but hopefully things start to change as we exit August.  We have seen rapid improvements in as little as 90 days during previous Fall seasons leading into Winter.   

 

 

[CAPE]

The PDO has been negative for years and we have still managed to snow. Most of those years have been Ninas(correlates to -PDO) so we shall see how it goes with a strong Nino. I would expect it to trend positive as we head into Fall.

[Jebman]

On 6/9/2026 at 6:08 PM, IronTy said:

JB is reading last rites for the winter with the 97-98 analogue.  How do we trade this and make bank?

TIMING.

Time the cold with the anomalous moisture associated with a super nino episode you have a brobdingnagian blizzard for DCA and the entire sub.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

45 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The PDO has been negative for years and we have still managed to snow. Most of those years have been Ninas(correlates to -PDO) so we shall see how it goes with a strong Nino. I would expect it to trend positive as we head into Fall.

Before last Winter, PHL's lowest 7-year snowfall on record was 13.3"/yr. 2018-2025 was 10.5"/yr, a pretty big difference. They were the epicenter of the snow drought but I think had a near average season last year. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

We've had 13 straight February's with +NAO. 10/13 were >+1.00. Something has to give there.  For comparison, our last Winter one month (DJFM) with NAO <-1.11 was Dec 2010. 

[CAPE]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Before last Winter, PHL's lowest 7-year snowfall on record was 13.3"/yr. 2018-2025 was 10.5"/yr, a pretty big difference. They were the epicenter of the snow drought but I think had a near average season last year. 

Yet south of there- eastern MD and DE- have done very well with snowfall wrt to avg since 2017. Rehoboth has had 3 or 4 blizzards between 2017 and last year. Pretty anomalous.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

21 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Yet south of there- eastern MD and DE- have done very well with snowfall wrt to avg since 2017. Rehoboth has had 3 or 4 blizzards between 2017 and last year. Pretty anomalous.

+ENSO tends to be more borderline, where -ENSO can flatten out the Atlantic ridge in -EPO.