Tropical Storms, Weather, and Natural Gas Demand: How Have Hurricanes Impacted Gas Consumption?

Abstract

In this paper, we study the impact of tropical storms on weather and the U.S. natural gas demand. Even though the general direction of the storm effect on gas consumption is known, no detailed analysis has been done to provide the magnitudes of the impact. We provide a detailed count of the effect of storms on temperature and natural gas demand by end use. Our empirical evidence shows that tropical storms decrease the temperature significantly by an average of 5-6 degrees with temperature drops ranging from 2 to 9 degrees on average for the regions we studied. The impact of summer temperature on gas demand is the strongest for power sector while the effects for other use uses are mixed.