A massive winter storm is about to hit nearly half the country — and natural gas markets are already reacting. Prices have exploded more than 70% in just five days, one of the sharpest moves on record. Why? Simple math. 

When it gets brutally cold, America turns on the heat. Nearly half of U.S. homes run on natural gas, and the power grid leans on it for electricity, too. Heating demand spikes. Power demand spikes. Supply? Not flexible. 

Natural gas isn’t like oil. You can’t reroute a truck or tanker overnight. It moves through pipelines — and in winter, those pipelines are already full. When demand surges, there’s nowhere for extra supply to come from. That’s why prices swing hard.

Producers are winning. Shares of major natural gas companies like EQT and Antero jumped as markets priced in tighter conditions. The U.S. Natural Gas ETF (UNG) surged as traders chased the move. And there’s a newer pressure point most people miss: data centers. Big Tech is building AI infrastructure faster than the grid can keep up, quietly consuming pipeline capacity in the background.

This isn’t theoretical. Winter Storm Uri in 2021 exposed how fragile gas delivery can be under stress. For households, higher prices won’t hit immediately — retail heating bills lag wholesale markets — but if the cold sticks around, the impact shows up later. Extreme weather breaks assumptions. And broken assumptions create volatility.