OK, it's almost June ... but come on!!!

I realize this is the South, and we're one day from the start of meteorological summer (June 1-Aug. 31), but don't fool yourself into thinking this week's heat wave is nothing out of the ordinary.

It is out of the ordinary.

And in a strange way, it's almost a mirror opposite of what happened exactly six months ago.

High pressure is building almost directly over the Carolinas, and it will bring near-record-breaking heat to the Charlotte region for the next few days. Today's forecast high of around 95 degrees isn't far from the day's record of 97, set in 1953.

And highs Wednesday and Thursday are expected to be in the ballpark of those day's records -- 98 for Wednesday (in 1918) and 99 for Thursday (in 1951). The heat likely will continue through the weekend and into next week, although there will be a slight change in the pattern.

Forecasters expect the center of high pressure to move backwards -- to the west -- a bit. That will bring more of an Atlantic Ocean flow into the Carolinas, which often tends to create some cloudiness and lower temperatures a few degrees. But highs are still predicted to reach 90 into next Tuesday.

So we've established that it will be hot. And, by the way, the air quality will be bad, too, because with high pressure centered over us, there will be very little air movement. That means a build-up in ozone levels, and it's the reason for our Code-Orange alert today.

A quick look at temperatures in late May and early June for the last 10 years shows nothing like this. There were a few years when Charlotte had three or four consecutive days in the 90s in early June, but nothing approached the string of seven or eight straight 90-degree days that are expected this time.

Many of those years, we had highs in the 70s in the first week of June. The average high for this time of year, by the way, is around 84.

So this is not normal.

I found it interesting how the beginning of meteorological summer was similar to the start of meteorological winter last Dec. 1.

We had warm weather through Thanksgiving, and the high temperature on Dec. 1 -- the first day of meteorological winter -- was 67 in Charlotte. Three days later, the high only reached 41, and it went downhill from there. From Dec. 4 until Valentine's Day, the Charlotte region (and nearly all of the eastern United States) had unrelenting cold and frozen precipitation.

It was as if a switch was flicked early last December, "turning on" winter.

Now it's happening with summer.

There's one other thing to watch here. Keep an eye on the location of high pressure systems over the next few weeks. That could give us an idea of where those highs will be in August and September, when tropical storms and hurricanes begin developing. The location of Atlantic high pressure plays a big role in determining if hurricanes are steered into Mexico (as was the case last year), the Gulf of Mexico (remember 2005?), or the East Coast and Florida panhandle (2004).