STORY: It’s still weeks before the start of summer, but temperatures in parts of Texas have already reached record highs. On Wednesday afternoon, heat in Austin reached a daily record high of 99 degrees Fahrenheit.Compare that to the previous daily record for May 14 at 96 degrees Fahrenheit, set in 2003, according to the National Weather Service. Dev Niyogi is a Earth and planetary sciences professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He says several factors have contributed to the unseasonably high temperatures. “There is a low-pressure system east of us, a low-pressure system west of us. So we have this beautiful high-pressured dome which is giving us brilliant blue skies, but it is also a way that all the radiation, the heat is coming our way. And we have a ground surface which is dry because of the drought and it is already heating up quite a bit, and then we have the winds coming from south which is like having a heater turned towards you when you actually want something cooler your way.” Reuters caught up with several Austin residents trying to cool down at a local pool. “It is super hot. Yeah, it's a little early for it. You know, we usually get these temperatures in June, July and August, not in May, beginning of May even. It's a lot.” The National Weather Service has placed much of the South-Central region of Texas under an extreme heat warning through Wednesday night.