It’s Fourth of July Weather on Presidents Day : Heat: Mercury reaches a record 94 at L.A. Civic Center. Half a million crowd county beaches. Snow slopes are busy too.

Southern Californians off for the Presidents’ Day holiday Monday sweltered--and flocked to the beaches--as the mercury hit a record 94 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center.

That was seven notches above the previous record of 87 set on Feb. 20, 1982, and tied the all-time high for a day in February.

The warmest spots in Southern California on Monday were Santa Ana and Monrovia, both with a high of 95 degrees. The coolest place in the Southland was Coronado, with a high of 70 degrees.

“It looks like summer,” said Malibu lifeguard Lt. Steve Wood as he surveyed the crowd of up to 100,000 at Zuma Beach.

The balmy weather--air temperatures around the mid-80s and water temperatures of about 60 degrees--drew an estimated half a million people to Los Angeles County beaches Monday, where lifeguards warned of riptides. They had rescued 65 by late afternoon.

Still, beach-goers heading west on the Santa Monica Freeway saw snow-capped mountains in the rearview mirrors. And, in fact, the holiday weekend was a solid one for local ski resorts.

Even though the mountains were competing with the first good beach weekend of the year, Snow Summit Mountain Resort in Big Bear sold out on Saturday and Sunday, with 6,800 skiers on the slopes each day. Monday drew a respectable 5,000, as temperatures hit 60 degrees and the long weekend came to an end.

“There were a few eye-catching outfits” on the slopes, said Bonnie Tregaskis, Snow Summit spokeswoman. “We’ve started seeing lots of shorts and a few tank tops. . . . You don’t see hats; people’s hair’s flying. I haven’t seen any bathing suits yet. Probably because people are still too white.”

Temperatures are expected to begin dropping to the normal range for this time of year, with a high of 87 today and 81 on Wednesday.

“It’s going to be cooling down over the next several days,” Curtis Brack, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., said, noting that the Santa Ana winds are coming to an end and a weak, upper-level storm will be drifting north from Baja California.

“There will be occasional high clouds for the next couple of days,” Brack said, “and a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms in the southern deserts (today) and Wednesday afternoon.”

Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this story.