After rallying much of last week, natural gas futures pared their gains in early trading Monday as the temperature outlook cooled over the weekend. The September Nymex contract was off 24.7 cents to $8.521/MMBtu as of around 8:50 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Weather models trended cooler over the weekend, including a small loss of 2-3 cooling degree days (CDD) from the European model, according to NatGasWeather.

The American model “lost a heftier 8 CDD, although it’s been running much too hot the past several weeks and was expected to lose demand in the seven- to 150-day period in time, which it did,” NatGasWeather told clients ahead of Monday’s session.

Overall, the upcoming pattern “isn’t nearly as intimidating as it’s been the past few months” from a natural gas market...