(Bloomberg) -- Temperatures along the U.S. East Coast are expected to soar as much as 30 degrees above normal Wednesday, potentially breaking records in New York and Washington.
The high in Washington may reach 78 degrees Fahrenheit (26 Celsius) on Wednesday, topping the previous record for the day of 75, Nick Vita, a forecaster with Commodity Weather Group LLC said Tuesday. New York will hit 71 degrees, breaking the old record by three degrees.
The winter break is courtesy of a weather pattern in the eastern Pacific that's pushing cold air into the western U.S. and allowing warmth to surge east, Vita said. The reprieve will be brief -- temperatures will return to more winter-like conditions Thursday, although readings will still be slightly above normal, he said.
All that warmth means lower prices for natural gas and electricity to heat homes and businesses. Wholesale power in New York fell to an 11-week low Tuesday morning, according to Genscape data. In New York City, the real time peak power price sank 69 percent to $10.96 a megawatt-hour, the lowest for the region since Dec. 5.
Gas distribution companies including Southern Co., may see some negative impact as a result of lower sales, said Kit Konolige, a New York-based Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said in an interview.
“My sense is that overall it's been a warmer first quarter so far,” Konolige said. “So I think were tracking below average in terms of the amount of gas sold.”
--With assistance from Christopher Martin
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Joe Ryan, Tina Davis
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