US Morning Demand Note, Sunday, July 26, 2026
Pre-open | ~6:40 ET
The dominant signal heading into the week is a national CDD load that has just repriced sharply higher, a 18-unit revision upward to 257 on the 15-day gas-weighted measure against a normal of 119, with the interior US carrying anomalies that dwarf seasonal baselines across every active zone.
The synoptic driver is a persistent, expansive upper-level ridge anchored over the central and southern US. The critical question for the near-term outlook is whether that ridge axis holds its current position or begins translating eastward into the early August window. If the ridge remains planted over the south-central corridor, the ERCOT and South/West heat load stays compressed at already-extreme levels, and the Midwest sees the most meaningful upside, the Chicago Citygate and MISO zone just revised +30 CDDs over 15 days, landing at an anomaly of 180 units above normal, which is the largest positive revision in this packet and the clearest sign that model runs are converging on a hotter northern tier solution. If the ridge sheds east into early August, Algonquin and TETCO M3 become the marginal heat story, the Northeast is already running +87 above normal with a 28-unit upward revision, and eastward amplification would accelerate that trajectory quickly given the compressed baseline (normal of only 98 CDDs over this window).
The most instructive single data point in this packet is the widest run-to-run day gap of 4.154 CDDs landing on August 3. That date marks where model spread is maximizing, the runs are not yet converging on that day's solution, which means the near-term (days 1–7) picture is relatively locked while the week-two amplitude remains in play. Any model run that moves August 3 materially hotter should be watched as confirmation the ridge is deepening rather than retreating.
Zone-by-zone, ERCOT and South/West are the floor of the demand story. Both revised slightly lower (-16 and -13 respectively), but their absolute anomaly levels, 239 and 206 above normal, mean cooling burn remains structurally elevated regardless of the modest trim. These zones are not driving the revision delta; they are sustaining a high base. The Midwest is driving the revision. A +30 CDD move against a sigma of only 12 is a statistically significant shift, roughly 2.5 standard deviations of run-to-run change, and the instrument chip confirming across all four active zones (Midwest, Northeast, ERCOT, South/West) indicates the load signal is broad-based, not regional noise.
The market read is supportive across both Henry Hub and regional power given cooling burn running well above normal, with all four demand-relevant zones simultaneously lit.
What changes the picture: a progressive pattern shift that pushes the ridge offshore ahead of August 3 would erode the Midwest and Northeast revisions most sharply, watch the next two runs for whether that day-8 gap narrows or widens. A third consecutive run adding to the Midwest CDD column would be the signal that the northern-tier heat is becoming a consensus solution, not a single-run outlier. Regime clarity on the next cycle will also matter, this run carried incomplete inputs, so the pattern label remains open.