Arctic Air Mass To Blast US, Roil Power Markets this Week

Heavy snow hits the Northeast

A blast of cold air is expected to dump into the Midwest and Northeast following this weekend’s snowstorm. Temperatures in the affected areas are expected to plunge on Monday to record lows, highly unusual for this time of the year, which will disrupt power and gas markets.

“A persistent anomalous cold will continue across the plains over the next week. This cold comes after a record cold February across this region, extending into the Canadian prairies. Heating demand will continue to run much above normal for Early March in this portion of the country with additional heating demand potential across the entire northern tier of the United States. In addition to the cold, yet another winter storm is forecast to impact the Northeast I-95 corridor Sunday into Monday with moderate to heavy snowfall expected,” reported Meteorologist and owner of Empire Weather LLC., Ed Vallee.

Weather models and energy demand forecasts have prompted an operator of a power grid network spanning from the Dakotas to Louisiana to issue a power-plant fuel restriction warning for Monday through Wednesday, reported Bloomhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-02/record-breaking-cold-blast-in-u-s-will-roil-markets-next-week?srnd=premiumberg.

A brutal Arctic air mass is about to take over the US

US Energy usage is starting to surge

In Wyoming, gas supplies were expected to be extremely tight that a pipeline operator warned of supply issues.

Power for delivery for most of the Lower 48, except for some parts in the West, is expected to surge in the next several days. Reports show energy demand in the Pacific Northwest region could jump to levels not seen in a decade.

As a major winter storm passes through the Midwest and off to the Mid-Alantic and Northeast Sunday to Monday, a blast of dangerously cold air is expected to linger through Wednseday, allowing a surge in demand for power and gas markets at a time when demand is usually low.

Monday could see subzero temperatures in Wichita, Kansas and Kansas City. Single-digit highs will paralyze Minneapolis, and Chicago is forecast to be in the teens.

The leading edge of the arctic air mass will reach the Northeast Sunday, with temperatures troughing on Tuesday. Residents of Pittsburgh, Binghamton, New York, and northern New England, will experience single-digit degree days.

Heating degree days (HDD), a measurement intended to quantify the demand for energy needed to heat a building, is expected to jump in the US Lower 48, more specifically Central, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest.

Power for delivery for the Pacific Northwest has already spiked to more than $890 per megawatt-hour, according to Intercontinental Exchange Inc. Gas for delivery this weekend in Sumas, Washington, surged to $200, the highest spot price recorded in the Lower 48.

On Friday, spot gas at Northern Natural Gas’s Ventura hub in Iowa jumped 4x to $13.50 per million British thermal units in trading, according to David Hoy, an energy trader with Dynasty Power Inc. in Calgary. “This is unprecedented,” he said.

Suppliers will have to draw natural gas out of storage to cope with next week’s insane demand spike, said Rick Margolin, a senior natural gas analyst at Genscape Inc.

“Even though latest weather forecasts have revised ever so slightly warmer, they’re still showing enough cold to generate demand levels that could set new highs for the month of March,” Margolin said. Withdrawals could reach 120 billion cubic feet per day Monday. Demand may dip by the end of the week, but “we still see notably higher-than-normal levels running well into the middle of the month,”Margolin said.

Wade Schauer, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said Midwest grid operators would need to import energy from neighbors to the East and West grids, and maybe even Canda, to meet the surge in demand.

Trackback from your site.

Comments (3)

  • Avatar

    tom0mason

    |

    Historically, true global warming happens slowly and over a long period of centuries. Warming a relatively cold planet takes time and a lot of solar energy.
    Sure there are occasions when things warm up (or cool down) for a decade or so but that is just a short term weather events. The vagaries of the solar output dictate the rate at which we warm-up.
    In contrast true global cooling happens relatively quickly — decades to less than a century. When the sun’s output lowers this planet still radiates out to space the atmospheric warmth it has. That’s because the basic operating condition of this planet is to loose atmospheric heat. The oceans are the only place that can retain any appreciable amount of solar energy. However the oceans are at this time, shedding heat fast.
    Given all we know about climate cycles is it not obvious that the period of warming has ended, and cooling has now begun. Though how cold it will get is anyone’s guess — something like the 1960-70s, or maybe like the Dalton minimum, hopefully not worse.

    Is any nation ready for global cooling in say 5-50 years hence?
    We may indeed only have 12 years before the disaster of this global cooling really makes itself very evident. Will we be ready before then?

    If you still think CO2 drives the climate, and that about one degree centigrade of warming since the end of the Little Ice Age is an omen for disaster the please read Alan Gray’s essay on this site at https://principia-scientific.com/forget-global-warming-the-sun-says-an-ice-age-is-coming/ .
    I’m not saying that everything he says is true or completely accurate, what I or he says matters
    little but as Astrophysicist Professor Valentina Zharkova says about her studies on the forthcoming global cooling …

    “MAYBE YOU ARE RIGHT, AND MAYBE I AM RIGHT. … IT ISN’T LONG TO WAIT … THE SUN WILL DECIDE VERY SHORTLY.”

    Professor Valentina Zharkova’s video (at https://youtu.be/M_yqIj38UmY) is worth the effort of watching.

    Have a good day thinking for yourself instead of following the crowd …

    Reply

Leave a comment

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Share via