Whether your heat can be shut off in Missouri when it is cold
If you live in Missouri and want to know whether your heat can be shut off when it is cold, the Cold Weather Rule gives a direct answer. The rule is a Public Service Commission requirement that keeps investor owned utilities, companies such as Ameren Missouri and Evergy, from cutting off gas or electric heat related service once a forecast shows the temperature dropping to 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below within the next 72 hours. The current heating season runs November 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026. Municipal utilities, electric cooperatives and propane delivered by truck are not covered.
It does not absolve you from your bill. It just says you can't be shut off for nonpayment when the temperature goes below 32 degrees.
Forrest Gossett, Communications Director and Chief Public Information Officer, Missouri Public Service Commission. Source 2.
What Senate Bill 4 actually changed
The 32 degree trigger is not new. This site checked the Missouri Office of Public Counsel, the state consumer advocate, and found the Cold Weather Rule and its 32 degree trigger have existed since 1977. What changed under Senate Bill 4, signed by Governor Mike Kehoe on April 9, 2025, is how far ahead a utility has to look. Before the bill, a utility only had to check whether the day of a planned shutoff, or the following 24 hours, would drop to 32 degrees or below. Now utilities must check 72 hours ahead, and lawmakers made the same 24 to 72 hour change to the Missouri Hot Weather Rule the same session.
Missourinet is the only one of the 5 sources that states the Hot Weather Rule change directly, so it is cited as this chart source.
Show the numbers
| Cold Weather Rule, before | 24 |
| Cold Weather Rule, after | 72 |
| Hot Weather Rule, before | 24 |
| Hot Weather Rule, after | 72 |
Previously, under the Missouri Public Service Commission rule, it was 24 hours, so that's an enhancement for consumers to go to 72 hours.
Forrest Gossett, Communications Director and Chief Public Information Officer, Missouri Public Service Commission. Source 2.
What the rule requires a utility to do
A customer can register in advance for extra notice by being 65 or older, disabled with medical certification, or a recipient of federal disability benefits. Utilities must mail written notice at least 10 days before any shutoff, attempt contact within 96 hours of cutting service and again right before it, and offer a 12 month payment plan with reconnection that does not require paying the full balance first. Being protected from a cold weather shutoff does not cancel the bill itself.
The scale of Missouri disconnections this protects against
The disconnections these rules pause are not rare. From March 2024 through February 2025, Evergy disconnected more than 35,000 customers for nonpayment across its Missouri territories, and Ameren disconnected more than 96,000 customers for nonpayment across its combined service territory, which also includes Illinois. Nationally, utilities reported 13,400,000 residential electric disconnections and 1,700,000 natural gas disconnections to the federal government in 2024.
Evergy and Ameren totals are reported as more than the figures shown, not exact counts. Ameren also serves Illinois, so its total is not Missouri only. National totals are source 5, the federal Energy Information Administration.
Show the numbers
| Evergy disconnections in Missouri territories | 35,000 |
| Ameren disconnections, combined territory | 96,000 |
| National electric disconnections | 13,400,000 |
| National gas disconnections | 1,700,000 |
The Cold Weather Rule itself has been part of Commission rules since 1977 and has helped more than 1,000,000 Missouri customers keep heat related service on since then, according to the Office of Public Counsel. Utilities covered by the rule still have to watch that 72 hour forecast window every day of the November through March season, and a customer who gets disconnected still owes the bill.