If you have been driving around Topeka and noticed that gas prices have gone up, your eyes are not deceiving you. And those prices could be going up even more by summer.

According to an article found on KSNT.com, gas prices are expected to average out about $2.80 cents a gallon. But that is not the bad news. Here is what one expert had to say in the article:

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy said in a blog post this week that $2.80 is a more likely average peak this spring, but Phil Flynn of the Price Futures Group told the paper the $3 mark is a real possibility. Even if the $3 average barrier isn’t broken, rising crude oil prices likely mean averages near $2 per gallon we saw last year are long gone.

“The era of low gasoline prices has ended and we are entering a new era of higher prices,” Flynn says.

The cold weather the South experienced last week is to blame for the sharp rise. Production plants had to close, but are back up and running. Another reason for the expected spike in gas prices is the cost of crude oil. At least in Kansas we are not at the $3.00 a gallon mark yet. That designation is given to the residents who live in California, Hawaii and soon in Washington.