Check this out:
How the Rocky Mountain Snowpack Impacts Natural Gas Prices
I never thought about it, but there is some correlation between snow and natural gas prices. This article shows the connection=Hydropower in the west. Not sure I believe it can effect that much, but I guess I would agree that the craze in drilling and fracking the shales has and will keep the price of NG low for some time. We have a lot of capacity for that. Unfortunately, we do not have the same, quick, in-ground capacity for oil. This magnifies as a cost problem for our personal transportation because it is based on oil (Gasoline or Diesel) not NG. We need to be putting a more effort into making a switch