Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette

Gabe Jukkala, 12, of Rozet, Wyo., makes a sandcastle at the Kestner Waterfront Park in Houghton Tuesday as Emmalyn Jukkala, 5, looks on. Temperatures reached record highs in the Copper Country Monday. The heat was the result of a blocking pattern caused by a high-pressure ridge blanketed by low pressure on either side, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tara Budzik. The 98 degrees recorded at the Houghton County Memorial Airport was a record for June 20, shattering the previous high of 85 in 1995. It’s still not an all-time record; in the 69 years of weather recording at the airport, the highest is 102 degrees, recorded on July 7, 1988. It wasn’t the highest temperature recorded in the area, Budzik said: Pelkie and Kenton tied at 99. Tuesday’s high was projected at 86; the ridge had shifted south and eastward Tuesday, leading to heat advisories from Baraga to Delta counties. A cold front was expected to bring highs in the low 60s today before another warm front restores temperatures to the low 80s over the weekend, Budzik said.