Happy New Year! Fill 'er up with $1.99 gas

The Twin Cities got its present at the pump for Christmas. St. Cloud had to wait until the new year, but $1.99 gasoline finally arrived.

After a steady monthslong slide, gas prices broke the $2-per-gallon barrier locally on New Year's Eve. By Thursday morning, the $1.99 price was commonplace around St. Cloud.

That's well below the $2.24 national average and $2.07 state average. It is also almost 40 percent less than the average St. Cloud price of $3.26 per gallon a year ago, according to AAA data.

The streak of falling gas prices is unprecedented. The national average price has fallen each day Sept. 25 — a record-setting 98 straight days of declines, according to AAA.

AAA estimates the average U.S. household saved about $115 on gasoline in 2014 compared to a year earlier.

The falling prices are attributed to abundant supplies of crude oil globally and relatively weak growth in demand.

The highest price AAA has on record for St. Cloud was $4.29 on May 18, 2013.

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