Now that spring’s here, at least on the calendar, Iowa’s largest utility says natural gas prices were up for the just-ended winter season, but they didn’t go as high as expected. MidAmerican Energy spokesman Allen Urlis says natural gas prices spiked several months ago, after all of those hurricanes hit just before the heating season began. Going into winter, it appeared customers’ heating bills could be as much as 15 to 20-percent higher than the previous year. Urlis says it was a warmer-than-normal winter so natural gas prices only rose about six-percent, not 15 to 20-percent. Urlis admits most Iowans won’t be crowing over the news. He says it could have been much worse as far as higher prices had the winter been much colder. Urlis says it’s “good news” given the rising expense of gasoline.