Gas prices are rising again. Here’s why you shouldn’t worry, one analyst says.

Prices as of Thursday afternoon were the highest in California, where drivers are paying an average of $4.731 per gallon, followed by Washington and Nevada at $4.094 and $3.959, respectively. Other states that have an average retail gasoline price of over $3.40 a gallon include Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to data from GasBuddy. 

The upward trend is likely to continue as travelers start hitting the roads this spring, said Aixa Diaz, a spokesperson for AAA.

“Historically, March and April bring higher gas prices as demand rises,” she wrote in a press release on Thursday. “With milder temperatures come more road trips, and this time of year tends to be a precursor to the summer driving season.”

Gas demand increased to 8.41 million barrels per day in the week ending Feb. 23, up from 8.33 million barrels in the previous week. Total domestic gasoline stocks declined by 2.8 million barrels to 244.2 million barrels over the same period, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

See: Gasoline prices are rising, but a bigger uptrend is set for later this month

The jump in prices at the gas pump comes even as oil prices have remained broadly steady on heightened tensions in the Middle East over the past four months. But MarketWatch reported earlier this month that Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the late January attack on U.S. troops in Jordan have raised the risk of escalation that could affect oil supply and exacerbate shipping delays while boosting prices for gasoline, a refined product made from crude oil. 

For the month of February, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude
CL00,
-0.31%

CL.1,
-0.31%
posted a monthly advance of 3.2%, while the global benchmark Brent crude
BRN00,
+0.11%
rose 2.3% for the month, according to Dow Jones Market Data. April WTI
CLJ24,
-0.31%
settled at $78.26 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, and April Brent crude
BRNK24,
+0.11%
ended at $83.62 on ICE Futures Europe, per FactSet data. 

Some of this jump in gasoline prices is considered normal, as the market usually sees a seasonal trend for gas prices to increase in March and April after bottoming in winter, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. OPIS is an energy-data and analytics provider that is part of News Corp’s Dow Jones, publisher of MarketWatch.

March and April are two of “the most hospitable months” for higher gasoline prices, because refiners are required to switch to make summer-grade products ahead of the May 1 compliance date, and some of them also ramp up their maintenance during this time of the year, Kloza said. 

Summer-grade gasoline usually has a lower volatility than winter-grade gasoline to limit evaporative emissions that normally increase with warm weather and cause unhealthy ground-level ozone, but it is more expensive than the winder-grade blend.

“If someone predicts that gas prices are going to go up 15 to 40 cents in the next 60 days, they’re really just predicting what pretty much happens every year,” Kloza told MarketWatch in a phone interview on Thursday, adding that his research suggests that the market will not see a “hellacious increase” in gasoline prices this year.