Find The Cheapest Gas At The Jersey Shore As Prices Rise Due To Harvey

If you're coming to the Jersey Shore for Labor Day weekend, spending your hard-earned dough on gasoline is probably the last thing you want to do.

Though the weather impact from the remnants of Hurricane Harvey is expected to be minimal for New Jersey, the hurricane is making its presence felt at gas pump topping the list.

Prices throughout the state have jumped nearly 20 cents per gallon in the wake of reports from Texas and Louisiana that refineries have been forced to shut down production due to Harvey's impacts, according to AAA MidAtlantic.

The shutdown has reduced the supplies of gasoline flowing through the Colonial Pipeline, which moves gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel from the Gulf coast to the Northeast, according to CNN.com. As of Wednesday 13 refineries have shut down out of 26, and Colonial's own facilities were affected as well, according to the CNN report.

Altogether, the disruption has knocked out about a fifth of the nation's refining capacity, according to S&P Global Platts.

Colonial shut down the gasoline pipeline on Thursday because of the ongoing flooding issues from Harvey. That led to another spike in gas prices. Across the country, gas prices have risen about 17 cents since Harvey struck, with the national average sitting at $2.52 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. That pipeline is expected to reopen Sunday, Colonial Pipelineofficials said in a report on AL.com out of Alabama.

In New Jersey, the average price on Friday was $2.55, up 9 cents from Thursday and up 18 cents from last Friday, Aug. 25, when motorists paid $2.37 per gallon, said Kathleen Miller, a spokesperson for AAA MidAtlantic.

The average prices are a penny higher across the board in Monmouth and Ocean counties, she said, sitting at $2.56 per gallon Friday, up from $2.38 last Friday.

So where can you go to find the lowest gas prices at the Jersey Shore while you're spending Labor Day weekend at the beach or with family without downloading an app?

AAA has a Fuel Price Finder (click here) that allows you to plug in the town and will show you current fuel prices at every available station and maps out every station in the area. (Just make sure to enable the site on your pop-up blocker.)

Autoblog (click here) also has easily accessed gasoline prices if you plug in the zip code.

And Geico has a site that searches out the gas stations nearest to your location and maps them for you (click here to access it).

AAA said prices should start to fall as refineries come back online in the wake of storm cleanup.

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