A light freeze may develop by Thursday morning in the northwestern Texas High Plains. That would be normal first freeze date there.

Cotton futures backed off a new intraday high since Sept. 23 to settle just below unchanged Tuesday, snapping a string of four higher closes in a row.

Spot December finished down four points to 71.15 cents, a few ticks below the midpoint of its 103-point range from down 52 points at 70.67 to up 51 points at 71.70 cents.

At the high, December had surged 494 points or 7.4% from last WednesdayΆs low just ahead of USDAΆs monthly supply-demand report. Another higher close would have constituted the longest winning streak since a six-session string ended July 15, exceeding a four-day run ended Sept. 22.

March eased off five points to close at 71.44 cents, while December 2017 dropped 18 points to settle at 70.88 cents.

Volume increased to an estimated 27,818 lots from 25,155 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 9,630 lots or 38%, EFS 515 lots and EFP 28 lots. Options volume totaled 1,917 calls and 1,917 puts.

A frost or light freeze may develop by Thursday morning in parts of the northwestern Texas High Plains as a dry cold front brings a cooldown from a record high date temperature Tuesday at Lubbock.

With applications of boll openers and defoliants underway across the region, most producers would welcome a light frost or freeze, crop sources said, but not a hard, killing freeze.

The normal first freeze dates in the nationΆs largest cotton patch range mainly from Oct. 20 around Muleshoe in the northwest to Oct. 31 at Lubbock and to Nov. 4 at Lamesa to the south.

Lows are forecast around 35 degrees Wednesday night at Muleshoe and 40 degrees Thursday night at Lubbock. The record high of 94 degrees Tuesday at Lubbock eclipsed the old mark of 93 in 1988. Normal high-lows are 75 and 48 degrees.

The expanding harvest under sunny skies has brought reports of yields off dryland cotton ranging from around 250 pounds to 1,000 pounds of lint per acre.

Production on the High Plains is estimated at 4.1 million bales, up 8% from last seasonΆs 3.798 million bales. The area is expected to produce 63% of the Texas crop and 27% of the U.S. upland output.

U.S. upland cotton classing increased to 598,710 running bales last week from 298,455 RB the previous week, according to USDAΆs latest weekly report. An initial 1,625 RB of Pima also was classed.

Upland classing for the season totaled 1,878,765 RB, up from 1,209,765 RB a year ago but behind 1,965,601 RB two years ago. Tenderable cotton accounted for 69.6%, compared with 57.9% last year and 74.8% two years ago.

Classing totaled around 12% of the October upland production forecast, against about 8% of the final 2015-crop tally a year ago.

Futures open interest grew 3,225 lots Monday to 246,076, with DecemberΆs up 1,136 lots to 146,255 and MarchΆs up 1,737 lots to 66,769. Cert stocks declined 86 bales to 29,069. There were 90 newly certified bales and 176 bales decertified.