Summer begins today.

The only surprise is that the calendar has taken so long to catch up with the weather.

The mercury has already reached 109 degrees in southwest Nebraska, and cities across the region, including Omaha, set records Monday for the warmest night on record for that date.

With spring's record warmth in the Midlands, will summer prove similarly hot?

No one can say for sure whether another seasonal record will be set, but Iowa and Nebraska are in their ninth consecutive month of warmer-than-normal weather.

"It's hard to go against that. Obviously it has to change sometime, but I'm thinking July's not going to be the time," said Harry Hillaker, state climatologist for Iowa.

Hillaker and Nebraska's state climatologist, Al Dutcher, said the best predictor of a coming month's weather is the weather of the current month.

"This time of year ... what we're currently experiencing is very often what we continue to get," Hillaker said.