If you're finding yourself clammy, sweaty and breathing heavily into your face mask when you're out and about at the moment, you're not alone.
Browns Bay Beach. File photo Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Yesterday and last Sunday have been the most humid days of Auckland's summer season so far, and with more rain on the way we could be in for even more sweaty afternoons.
NIWA forecaster Nava Fedaeff said it's accurate to compare the current muggy weather to the tropics, with yesterday's conditions on par with somewhere like Fiji.
"We can't really travel very easily to the tropics at the moment, but the air is travelling to us instead, so if we trace back some of the air that's moving towards the country over the next couple of days, it's originating from around New Caledonia."
Over the past week, the country has recorded a lot of rain, with some parts of the West Coast forced to evacuate due to flooding. Fedaeff said that is also causing the high humidity.
NIWA measures humidity using dew points - the temperature at which you'd get condensation or dew forming.
Yesterday the dew point temperature in Auckland reached 22.3C.
"Anything above 18C for a dew point temperature is considered uncomfortable ... that's where you really feel it, especially at night.
"If you've got cloudy skies your temperatures stay a bit elevated as well, so we have had quite a lot of warm nights over the last few months, which haven't been particularly great for trying to get a good night's sleep."
NIWA looked at the weather station in the South Auckland suburb of Māngere to see how many days the dew point has reached over 20 degrees in previous summers.
Over the summer season of 2019/2020 NIWA found there were a total of four days, and in the summer of 2020/2021 there were three days.
"If we look at this summer, we're currently on the 10th time that it's occurred. So quite impressive, and it's probably only going to get more impressive as the week progresses," Fadaeff said.
Why is humidity so uncomfortable?
Fadaeff said humidity is a strain because our body finds it harder to cool itself down.
"Our bodies need to cool down, and one of the ways we do that when we're in a [hot] environment is that you get evaporation just from your body. If the air is dry, then that's quite easy for your body to evaporate and get rid of some of that heat.
"However, when the air is already full of moisture it's not as effective, and so you don't cool down as quickly. You get hotter easier, so that's why even when the temperature itself isn't particularly hot, our ability to cool down is affected."
For a way to deal with this intolerable humidity we head to balmy Palmy.
Nelson Lebo is the Palmerston North City Council's Eco Advisor, and has a solution he swears by.
He said if you turn you fan around and point it out the window to blow the hot air out, it'll cool your room down far more effectively than if it faces into the room.
"Immediately you'll be exhausting warmer air out of your home and bringing in cool air."
He got the idea from his grandmother who lived in a hot apartment in New Jersey, and he's been using the trick ever since.
"This is the cheapest, best, most eco friendly way that the average person can cool down. Warming and cooling air is expensive, but moving air is cheap as chips. It just takes a fan, that would even hardly turn up on your power bill."
According to the NIWA forecast, the humid weather in the North Island will not ease until next week, as more rain and air from the tropics is expected to arrive over the weekend.
