As the Christmas and New Year’s holidays approach, motorists in metro Atlanta and Georgia are seeing gasoline prices start to fall.
AAA-The Auto Club Group reports that the average price across the state last week was $3.14 a gallon, 4 cents down from the previous week and 12 cents below the November average.
But the sharp rise in gas prices in recent months, which came with a peak of nearly $3.25 a gallon in some areas of metro Atlanta, means that the current average is still $1.14 more than this time in 2020.
AAA estimates that a 15-gallon tank costs $47.10 to fill up, $10.20 more than January 2020, when the cost at the pump was $2.46 per gallon in Georgia.
“Lower oil prices continue to bring down prices at the pump,” said Montrae Waiters, AAA-The Auto Club Group spokeswoman. “As well as, when the Omicron variant emerged in late November, health experts concluded the variant did not seem to produce more severe cases than other variants. Markets have taken that to mean global energy demand will likely not be diminished. Unfortunately, we still can’t predict if the Omicron variant will continue to push oil and gas prices lower for the remainder of the month.”
The metro Atlanta average is $3.18 a gallon, and around East Cobb many stations are at or below that price for unleaded fuel.
The current national average is $3.32. You can check gas prices near you by clicking here.
The Auto Club Group also is projecting a healthy rebound in the number of Georgians traveling for the holidays, between Dec. 23-Jan. 2.
The estimate is 3.4 million travelers in the state, which is down from 2019 but represents an increase of 857,949, or 34 percent more, than 2020, the first holiday season of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those projections reflect nationwide surges in holiday travel, according to an AAA report you can read by clicking here.
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