Dangerous early season extreme heat is on tap for parts of Texas this week in a prelude to what’s expected to be an abnormally hot summer nationwide.

“Definitely more like August this week than May,” Cameron Self, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in the Houston and Galveston area, said Tuesday. A very strong ridge of high pressure over the south-central United States that is centered over the Gulf of Mexico will be responsible for the extreme heat.

Texas is bracing for a relentless and potentially historic heat wave this week, with dangerously high temperatures expected statewide.