Heating bills expected to be lower

Weather forecasters see little chance of an encore of last winter’s bitter cold, which means heating costs will likely be lower for most consumers

Meanwhile, many energy companies have used the lessons of last winter to improve their delivery systems, particularly for propane.

So, even if forecasts turn out to be way off, there is a much lower chance of the kind of

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panic that hit parts of Ohio in January and February.

“Last year was such an outlier,” said Chris Lafakis, senior economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We don’t get these sorts of outliers back to back.”

The most important variables are weather and natural-gas prices.

First, the weather: Ohio’s average temperature from December to February looks to be 2 degrees lower than normal, according to AccuWeather, the forecasting service in State College, Pa. But that’s not as far off averages as last year, when for the same period the average was 4 degrees below normal.

“It won’t be as severe as it was last winter, but it’s not going to (be so warm that) you say, ‘Geez, this is a mild winter,’” said Bob Smerbeck, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is also saying that the period between December and February is poised to be warmer than the same period last year for the region that includes Ohio.

As for natural-gas prices, the Energy Information Administration is predicting that market prices will be lower than they were a year ago.

At the same time, gas consumption will be down, accordwhom ing to a forecast from Columbia Gas of Ohio. The utility says an average household is expected to use 12 percent less gas in December through February compared with the same period in the prior year.

In Ohio, 66 percent of households heat their homes with natural gas, according to the Census Bureau. Households using electricity represent 23 percent; propane, 5 percent; and heating oil, 2 percent.

The outlook for electricity costs this winter isn’t as budgetfriendly as the natural-gas outlook. American Electric Power