An Arctic air invasion of the eastern half of the US, combined with the increasing risk of a major winter storm stretching from Texas through the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast by this weekend, has triggered sharp upside repricing and panic-style buying in NatGas futures.

As of Wednesday morning, New York NatGas futures are up another 19%. Combined with earlier gains this week, prices have jumped roughly 50% so far. If these gains are sustained through Friday, it would mark the largest weekly increase in NatGas on record, going back to 1990.

The sharp repricing of NatGas futures nearly sent prices to the $5 level earlier in the trading session.

We have documented the incoming cold blast and winter storm threats, with impacts on energy markets in the last five days:

This Could Be The Big One

NatGas Futs Erupt As Arctic Air Invasion Penetrates Deep Into US South

US NatGas Spikes Most Since Ukraine Invasion On Arctic Blast, Major Winter Storm Threat

Ranald Falconer, a derivatives trader at Goldman, provided clients with more color on what could be a historic cold blast for the eastern half of the Lower 48:

Henry Hub on an absolute tear overnight! Front natural gas contracts hit a $4.95 high overnight, peaking just before the London open. The over-riding story here has not changed a great deal, as I mentioned yesterday when looking at Europe, cold weather fronts have been pushed deeper into Jan, and now Feb.

That draw on gas for heating has obviously pushed flat price in Q1 higher, and with it we have seen shorts get stopped out. That isn't new; I mentioned some sizable Feb/Mar shorts being bought back end of last week, and yesterday similar in TTF. Overnight though, that is one heck of a move! If that is flat price stops in Feb and Mar, it is a strange time of day to put that sort of volume through the screens. I have Feb and Mar trading 3.5x and 4.0x their normal daily accumulated volume at this point.

This note is slightly later than I would have been able to bash it out, but I have had about 6 or 7 separate conversations on the topic with people a lot smarter in the gas world than me. Most poignant comment was that they had not seen such a dramatic change in the weather runs.