Natural gas futures fell for a third day as forecasts showed milder weather in the U.S. Northeast later this month, reducing demand for the heating fuel. Gas dropped as much as 1.4 percent as temperatures will be above normal in the Northeast and in a normal range in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania from Dec. 23 to Dec. 29, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures have been below normal since last week. “The extreme below-normal cold weather is going away and at the same time we still got tons of gas underground,” said Brad Florer, a trader at Kottke Associates Inc., an energy trading firm in Louisville, Kentucky. “The chart overall still looks pretty bearish.” Natural gas for January delivery fell 4.9 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $4.173 per million British thermal units at 9:03 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange after declining to $4.162, the lowest intraday level since Nov. 30. The futures have dropped 25 percent this year. The Energy Department may report today that 165 billion cubic feet of gas were withdrawn from storage in the week ended Dec. 10, above the five-year average of 153 billion, according to the median of 22 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gas stockpiles were 9.8 percent above average in the week ended Dec. 3, according to the department. To contact the reporter on this story: Moming Zhou in New York at Mzhou29@bloomberg.net; To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net

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