It looks like winter is here -- at least this weekend over most of the southern and eastern US, according to weather forecasts I happen to catch.
I assume "everyone" saw this coming several years ago (after all, we know that the earth will be 2 degrees warmer one hundred year from now) but it certainly seems like the mainstream media is now just hearing about it. All of a sudden a gazillion news stories on how cold it will be this weekend.
I don't know if it was a reader or if I noted this myself but I'm quite "proud" of it either way.
At $3.722, the price of natural gas (at the Henry Hub, I suppose) spiked over 5%.
First, the note today from CNBC sent to me by Don:
This is what makes this so exciting. Starting last spring I noted how low the natural gas fill rate was and how long it was taking to "turn the corner." See this graphic from May 3, 2018:
After that graphic I started posting the "fill rate" graphic every week; to the first tag, I added a second tag when it appeared this could be an interesting winter.
Since May, 2018, we have been tracking this, and, now, November 9, 2018, CNBC is starting to report it.
This is the most recent graphic, from yesterday:
In a few months the "grey area" in the graphic above will be extended downward and after a few weeks folks will forget that it was 2018 when we set a new 5-year low. To prove my point, by looking at the graphic above, in what year did the "current/previous" 5-year low occur? Was it last year? Two years ago? Five year ago?
Having said that, we will have a small clue going forward. In the graphic above, look at the blue line after April 18, 2018. When did the blue line start to flatten out instead of "going up" as expected: Answer: May/June, 2018, timeframe.
When did it become obvious that we were setting a new low that was going to be sustained? Answer: July/August, 2018, timeframe.
So in the future, the five-year low between October, 2016, and May, 2018, will remain unchanged, but after August 1, 2018, "we" set a new five-year low.
It might be interesting to compare the NG-fill-rate graphic above with this graphic:
Getting back to the natural gas fill rate, if you've read this far, be sure to read this post based on a long note from a reader who follows the natural gas story very, very closely.
By the way, the RBN Energy graphic shows the same thing noted above: after April, the fill rate should continue on an upward trajectory. But note, that for 2018, that upward trajectory unexpectedly plateaued about June, 2018, and then dropped below the five year low in the July/August time frame.
By the way, this last graph answers the question: what year was the previous five-year low? Answer: 2014.
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