Average retail gasoline prices in Washington have fallen 11.4 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.96/g yesterday. This compares with the national average that has fallen 9.0 cents per gallon in the last week to $3.67/g, according to gasoline price website WashingtonGasPrices.com.

Including the change in gas prices in Washington during the past week, prices yesterday were 14.9 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 4.3 cents per gallon lower than a month ago. The national average has decreased 14.2 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 20.1 cents per gallon higher than this day one year ago.

“Only one other time in the last few years have we seen the national average drop so significantly in the course of just a week, and that other time was in May 2011,” said GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan. “Looking back at our data, we only see that prices dropped considerably more in autumn 2008 when the economy slipped into a recession. Given the circumstances with this latest weekly decrease- that it has nothing to do with recession- is significant,” DeHaan said.

About WashingtonGasPrices.com

GasBuddy operates WashingtonGasPrices.com and over 250 similar websites that track gasoline prices at over 140,000 gasoline stations in the United States and Canada. In addition, GasBuddy offers a free smartphone app which has been downloaded over 20 million times to help motorists find gasoline prices in their area. In Washington, GasBuddy tracks price changes at 2,666 retail outlets.