NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Drivers in much of the Southeast -- and especially Georgia -- probably have a hard time believing reports of retreating or stable gasoline prices around the rest of the nation.

In Thursday's AAA daily gas price report, as prices fell in New York, California and Massachusetts, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in Georgia was up nearly 3 cents, with the price in the Atlanta area jumping nearly 5 cents. The average prices in those markets -- $2.780 in Georgia, and $2.788 in Atlanta -- are still below the AAA national average of $2.815, which was up 0.4 cent from the day before.

Prices rose more than a cent a gallon on average in Florida and Alabama, according to AAA, and the average price was up about 2 cents a gallon in Louisiana and Mississippi, two states still struggling to recover from the damage done by Hurricane Katrina.

But while those states are seeing increases, about 80 percent of the states saw prices either decline, stay steady, or rise by less than a penny. Arizona saw the average price fall by nearly a full cent to $2.916, although that was still above the national average.