Something to consider is that in a "normal" year, is the west coast warmer than the east coast? I know that Seattle is a heck of a lot warmer than New York, but how far east of the Pacific do they still consider west coast? Does all of washington count? what about Idaho? Surely Montanna and Wyoming are in the mid-west.

Then, in addition to the West possibly being generally warmer, what are the population densities like? 1,000 people need to warm up less space than 10,000 people, and in theory that would mean more gas would be needed just in an average year.

Either of these things could mean that the colder temps in the East could make it an above average energy useage for the year, despite being warmer in the west. And this isn't even getting to the question of degrees. Maybe the west coast will be 2 degrees warmer, but the east coast will be 10 degrees colder.

You mention that forcasts this far ahead shouldn't have too much stock put into them, but there's even more unknowns staring at us for the little faith that might be put into them.

After looking at that weather map, there are a series of lateral stripes in the winter forecast with East Coast (particularly norht of NYC) being coldest in country and west coast being warmer. The northeast uses alot of heating oil for home heating compared to the midwest where natural gas is more prevalent. When assuming a much colder than normal winter for northeast, that would be less severe on shortages than a slightly colder winter in midwest. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusets, Rhode Island and Vermont consume .02%,.16%,.9%,2.48%,.4% and .06% respectively for a total of 4.02% of the nations natural gas for home heating. The midwest block of Illinois, Ohio and Michigan consumes 9.32%,6.76% and 7.59% respectively for a total of 23.67% of nation. (California is first with 9.68%). EIA link here
(the population of the northeast states above is 14.2million vs IL/MI/OH is 34.1 million so nat gas is 6 times more use vs 2.5 x the population - if we add New York at 8.13% of national both population blocks are identical and we have 23.67% vs 12.15%. Midwest states uses twice the nat gas as east coast (at least) for home heating. I will follow this post with nat gas for electricity use.