Sept 15 (Reuters) - ICE cotton bounced back from a near one percent drop initially to settle higher for the third straight session on Thursday as forecasts for rain in the cotton-belt areas of the United States offset poor export sales data.

Weekly export sales report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed net upland sales totaled 136,400 running bales of cotton for the week ended Sept. 8, compared with 344,500 running bales in the prior week.

"Today, sales were poor, shipments were also poor and the surprise was Pakistan and India bought almost no cotton," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi.

Net sales of Pima cotton for 2016/2017 for India fell to 5,900 running bales last week from 8,100 running bales in the week earlier, while those for Pakistan declined to 900 running bales from 2,100 running bales of the natural fiber during the same period.

However, forecast for rain in the cotton belt in the United States were supportive of prices, Varner added.

* The second month December cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. settled up 0.19 cent, or 0.28 percent, at 67.72 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 66.82 and 67.95 cents a lb.

* The dollar index was down 0.05 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.66 percent.

* Total futures market volume fell by 5,648 to 10,449 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 906 to 231,339 contracts in the previous session. (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala and Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru)