There is some hope ahead: The Bureau of Meteorology thinks the unseasonable high humidity should be on the way out as the usual hot and dry takes over.
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"There has definitely been an anomaly from the norm," Bureau meteorologist Dylan Bird said.
He said the recent high humidity in Canberra was caused by the high temperature of the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea down the coast of eastern Australia.
Warm sea water meant more evaporation, and so more water in the air. Another phenomenon - the Southern Annular Mode - meant that winds were easterly (they blew from west to east) so that high moisture over the ocean became high moisture over the land.
And over our beds at night.
At midnight on Tuesday, humidity was 84 per cent; on Wednesday in the middle of the night, it was 80 per cent. It fell to what felt like a refreshing 57 per cent at midnight on Thursday night.
But the good news for those who don't have (or object to) air-conditioning is that the phenomena over the ocean seems to be shifting. The change means that winds should switch from towards the land to away from the land.
"We should see hotter and drier temperatures over the coming days," forecaster Dylan Bird said.
The Bureau forecasts temperatures reaching 35 on Sunday, and then falling through the week to a maximum of 23 (with a chance of rain) on Thursday).
Which will be a relief to those who tossed and turned in the humidity of the past week.
Canberra GP Dr Niral Shah said patients at his practice in Gunghalin sometimes felt dizzy and exhausted by the heat.
"It's been difficult for children because they have got exhausted easily," he said. He also worried about construction workers.
His advice was to drink water - but not sweetened water. "You might feel better because of the sugar but it will draw the water out of your cells, and that will exhaust you," he said.
If people object to plain water, they might put a strawberry or a slice of lemon in it to give it some taste, he said.
And he advised children playing outside and outdoors tradespeople to be "sun smart" by wearing light clothes, ideally made of cotton, and keeping hydrated.
One counter-intuitive advice from a group of Australian scientists is that cold showers aren't the best way of cooling down.
The cold water reduces the skin's ability to lose heat, they wrote: "Some minutes later, we feel hot again."
"So, keeping cool in summer will be more effective with a warm shower (water temperature about 33C) rather than a cold shower (water temperature 20-25C). It will seem warm initially but after a few minutes will provide better comfort in the long term."
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
