Seventeen days. That is the gap between our last gas snapshot and the one we just pulled on April 28. Long enough for refineries to swing, short enough that anyone telling you "prices are exploding" or "prices are crashing" is selling you a feeling, not a number. The national average ticked from $4.135 to $4.176 — call it a penny a week — but the state map underneath that flat headline is anything but uniform.
Roughly half the country kept climbing. Twelve states basically held still. Nine actually fell. And one state — Colorado — went on its own little rally that nobody asked for.
The standouts
Colorado is the headline. Up +9.3% ($3.776 → $4.128) while every other state moved less than half that. Refinery turnaround season in the Rockies is the usual suspect; whatever the cause, Denver-area drivers are paying for it. Behind Colorado, the next biggest jumps are Ohio (+5.2%), Michigan (+4.8%), and Nebraska / Kansas (both ~+4.1%). The Great Lakes and Plains region took the worst of these two and a half weeks.
On the other side, Texas caught the biggest break at -2.8% ($3.828 → $3.721), with New Mexico (-2.3%) and a band of Southeast states — Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana — all down 1–2%. If you live anywhere along I-20 or I-10, you genuinely paid less this week than two weeks ago. That is not nothing.
How the country splits
| Bucket | Move | Count | Who's in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Still climbing hard | +2% or more | 20 states | CO, OH, MI, NE, KS, AK, CT, ME, WI, ND, NH, RI, MA, OK, NJ, SD, WY, PA, WA, OR |
| Mild creep | +1% to +2% | 10 states | MT, NY, NV, WV, ID, MN, UT, MO, IL, CA |
| Plateau | within ±1% | 12 states + DC | AR, VT, DE, IA, NC, FL, DC, VA, SC, IN, HI, MD |
| Quiet relief | -1% to -3% | 9 states | TN, MS, LA, AZ, KY, AL, GA, NM, TX |
If your state is in the "plateau" bucket, congratulations: your pump price is doing the most boring thing it has done all year, and after the January-to-April climb that is a feature, not a bug. Hawaii in particular — last seen as the most expensive market that hadn't spiked the most — finally posted a decline (-0.1%). It is the difference of a penny, but a penny going the right direction is its own kind of news in 2026.
Every state, sorted by % change (high to low)
Up means worse for your wallet. Down means a small win. The orange and blue match how we'll plot it on the map.
| State | Apr 11 | Apr 28 | $ change | % change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | $3.776 | $4.128 | +$0.352 | +9.32% |
| Ohio | $3.886 | $4.087 | +$0.201 | +5.17% |
| Michigan | $3.998 | $4.189 | +$0.191 | +4.78% |
| Nebraska | $3.626 | $3.777 | +$0.151 | +4.16% |
| Kansas | $3.491 | $3.634 | +$0.143 | +4.10% |
| Alaska | $4.649 | $4.827 | +$0.178 | +3.83% |
| Connecticut | $4.096 | $4.247 | +$0.151 | +3.69% |
| Maine | $4.053 | $4.201 | +$0.148 | +3.65% |
| Wisconsin | $3.808 | $3.933 | +$0.125 | +3.28% |
| North Dakota | $3.610 | $3.721 | +$0.111 | +3.07% |
| New Hampshire | $3.979 | $4.097 | +$0.118 | +2.97% |
| Rhode Island | $3.998 | $4.115 | +$0.117 | +2.93% |
| Massachusetts | $3.971 | $4.084 | +$0.113 | +2.85% |
| Oklahoma | $3.474 | $3.570 | +$0.096 | +2.76% |
| New Jersey | $4.050 | $4.152 | +$0.102 | +2.52% |
| South Dakota | $3.688 | $3.779 | +$0.091 | +2.47% |
| Wyoming | $3.852 | $3.942 | +$0.090 | +2.34% |
| Pennsylvania | $4.166 | $4.263 | +$0.097 | +2.33% |
| Washington | $5.391 | $5.513 | +$0.122 | +2.26% |
| Oregon | $4.991 | $5.101 | +$0.110 | +2.20% |
| Montana | $3.902 | $3.979 | +$0.077 | +1.97% |
| New York | $4.136 | $4.214 | +$0.078 | +1.89% |
| Nevada | $4.981 | $5.069 | +$0.088 | +1.77% |
| West Virginia | $3.963 | $4.026 | +$0.063 | +1.59% |
| Idaho | $4.315 | $4.381 | +$0.066 | +1.53% |
| Minnesota | $3.743 | $3.799 | +$0.056 | +1.50% |
| Utah | $4.223 | $4.282 | +$0.059 | +1.40% |
| Missouri | $3.671 | $3.722 | +$0.051 | +1.39% |
| Illinois | $4.398 | $4.450 | +$0.052 | +1.18% |
| California | $5.900 | $5.965 | +$0.065 | +1.10% |
| Arkansas | $3.648 | $3.684 | +$0.036 | +0.99% |
| Vermont | $4.118 | $4.158 | +$0.040 | +0.97% |
| Delaware | $4.020 | $4.059 | +$0.039 | +0.97% |
| Iowa | $3.695 | $3.722 | +$0.027 | +0.73% |
| North Carolina | $3.917 | $3.944 | +$0.027 | +0.69% |
| Florida | $4.057 | $4.084 | +$0.027 | +0.67% |
| District of Columbia | $4.281 | $4.303 | +$0.022 | +0.51% |
| Virginia | $4.025 | $4.045 | +$0.020 | +0.50% |
| South Carolina | $3.850 | $3.866 | +$0.016 | +0.42% |
| Indiana | $3.985 | $3.992 | +$0.007 | +0.18% |
| Hawaii | $5.649 | $5.641 | -$0.008 | -0.14% |
| Maryland | $4.141 | $4.119 | -$0.022 | -0.53% |
| Tennessee | $3.909 | $3.860 | -$0.049 | -1.25% |
| Mississippi | $3.765 | $3.717 | -$0.048 | -1.27% |
| Louisiana | $3.779 | $3.730 | -$0.049 | -1.30% |
| Arizona | $4.708 | $4.635 | -$0.073 | -1.55% |
| Kentucky | $4.042 | $3.974 | -$0.068 | -1.68% |
| Alabama | $3.868 | $3.799 | -$0.069 | -1.78% |
| Georgia | $3.720 | $3.650 | -$0.070 | -1.88% |
| New Mexico | $4.014 | $3.920 | -$0.094 | -2.34% |
| Texas | $3.828 | $3.721 | -$0.107 | -2.80% |
| U.S. (reported national avg.) | $4.135 | $4.176 | +$0.041 | +0.99% |
What this actually means
A flat national average is doing real work hiding the dispersion. 30 states moved up more than 1% in 17 days — annualize that and it is not a number anyone wants to look at. 9 states moved down more than 1%. The rest are genuinely flat. So if you live in the Southeast or Texas, your "gas prices are easing" instinct is real. If you live in Colorado, Ohio, or Michigan, you are not imagining the sting either.
The structural picture from the January-to-April climb hasn't reversed — most of the country is still up more than 30% versus January, and another 1–5% on top of that does not feel small at the pump. But the slope is finally bending, and "bending" is a category we have not been in since New Year's.
For the live map and the full Jan / March / April trail, the Gas Prices by State page is updated. We will keep snapshotting every two-ish weeks; the next one will tell us whether Colorado's spike was a refinery hiccup or the start of a new regional story.
Bottom line: The pump took a breath, but only sort of, and only in some places. If your state is in the orange tier above, the climb continues; if it is in blue, you got a real-but-modest break; if it is in the middle, congratulations, you are paying the same horrible price as two weeks ago.