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Gas Buddy expert says now is good time to fill up tank for Memorial Day

It's a good idea to fill up on gas sooner rather than later if you have any travel plans for the holiday weekend.

Patrick DeHaan is head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy, and he says prices may go up over the next couple days or early next week.

"If you have a boat to fill or if you're hitting the road this weekend and your tank is on E, I certainly would go fill up that tank," DeHaan says. "Prices may go up here in the next 48 hours."

He says gas prices in Jacksonville peaked at $2.78 a gallon on average on May 2, and now they've dropped over 20 cents a gallon to $2.56 on average.

The worry this weekend is something called "price cycling," DeHaan says. That's when prices make a big jump of 20 or 30 cents per gallon in one day, and then they start trickling down again over time.

"That is what I would expect, is that prices would go up quite a bit, but then they'll start coming back down for the weeks following," DeHaan says.

As far as Memorial Day travelers, DeHaan says South Florida generally has higher gas prices than around here. So if you plan on driving in that direction it's a good idea to fill up here before you go and then wait until you're closer to home to fill back up again.

On the other side of the coin, if you plan on going through one of the other neighboring states it's a good idea to get gas there if you can. DeHaan says South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have some of the country's cheapest gasoline right now. Georgia is closer to the national average, but that's still probably going to be better than the high prices in Florida.

There’s some good news if you remember filling up your tank last year around this time.

"Even if prices do move up, it will be a cheaper Memorial Day weekend than what we saw last year when prices averaged about $2.84 a gallon," DeHaan says.

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