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As North Carolina drivers travel the state this July 4th weekend - and fewer will be - they'll discover that fireworks aren't the only thing that's gone sky high.

A fill-up will cost the typical driver $16.65 more this July 4 than last.

Over the past 12 months, AAA Carolinas reported Monday, gas prices across the state have shot up an average of $1.10 a gallon, or 38 percent.

Travel officials said it's the largest year-to-year increase since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That annual jump in prices totaled $1.36 a gallon.

"That was triggered by a catastrophic event," said Tom Crosby, AAA's vice president of communications. "This is more of a pervasive, national and international economic sea change."

Crosby said the next largest holiday-to-holiday increase came between Thanksgiving 2006 and Thanksgiving 2007, when prices jumped 88 cents a gallon.

He blamed the most recent rise on the nation's addiction to oil, emerging markets in China and India and speculation on Wall Street, what he called "the perfect storm."

Industry analysts, meanwhile, pointed to what's happened to the price of crude oil, which has doubled in the past year. It hovered around $140 a barrel Monday compared to $70 a year ago.

"And we thought that was high," said Doug MacIntyre, senior oil market analyst for the Energy Information Administration in Washington. "We've never seen crude oil prices jump like this."

Travel officials pointed out that while Tar Heel drivers are paying record prices at the pump, the demand for gas is down only 2 percent.

"If you have a product and you keep raising the price and people keep buying it, why would you reduce it?" Crosby asked.

"The industry is getting as much as it can while it can. That is the nature of capitalism."

AAA reported 1 million Tar Heels will take to the roads during the holiday weekend, a decrease of 1.3 percent over last year.

The good news is that gas in the Triad remains a relative bargain, with an average price of $3.98 for a gallon of unleaded regular. The bad news is that a year ago that gas would have cost $2.87, or $1.11 less.

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com