(Bloomberg) — An extended run of bone-chilling cold is poised to send demand for power and natural gas surging across much of the US this weekend, with snow expected in the Northeast by Sunday and a chance of snow or sleet along the Gulf Coast early next week.
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Frigid weather has already begun to set in across the Central US. By Monday, daily high temperatures will be 20F to 35F below average across a large swath of the country, according to the US Weather Prediction Center. Houston will have overnight readings below freezing, while Washington will see single digits. As much as 3 inches (8 centimeters) of snow may fall in Manhattan during the day on Sunday.
“At least for northeastern US, these be the coldest readings since just before Christmas in 2022,” said David Roth, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
That winter, a short-lived Arctic front sent temperatures dipping into the single digits Fahrenheit, Roth added, but the system currently unfurling across the US is expected to last as long as four days.
The largest US electric grid, PJM Interconnection, said in a statement that demand on Tuesday and Wednesday “is expected to approach PJM’s all-time winter peak,” which occurred on Feb. 20, 2015. PJM declared a “conservative operations” event beginning Monday due to extreme cold, signaling that generators should secure gas supplies to prevent disruptions as demand peaks.
The New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s grid, announced that it expects demand to top out Tuesday at 24,400 megawatts, exceeding its high forecast for this winter. In a statement Friday, NYISO’s vice president of operations, Aaron Markham, said the system should still have “an adequate supply of electricity” to get through the cold snap.
–With assistance from Naureen S. Malik.
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