Moruya residents certainly thought so, with thermometers at the airport frying into the forties this week - for only the second time in half a century.

In fact Moruya airport was reportedly one of the hottest spots in Australia in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with the mercury registering an incredible 31.9 at 3am.

The thermometer hovered around that spot for about three hours, cooling to 23.4 at 7am, before shooting back up to 35 degrees by 11am.

Everyone sweltered this week, but three blokes that almost melted were builder Danny Williams, labourer Mark Coman and apprentice Mitchell Cummings.

The three knocked up another section of a new hangar at the Moruya Airport, a project they've worked at for over a month.

They had a heap of work to get through to prepare for concreters on Wednesday - all of it in the brutal sun.

"It was killer!" Mr Coman said this week.

"If we weren't concreting today, we would've gone home," Mr Williams said.

Instead, they drank buckets of water, paced themselves and made friends with flies.

"It was non-stop for the water bottle," Mr Willams said.

The blokes prayed for rain, and were finally granted it: "just as we were jumping in the car to go home".

The last time Moruya bubbled over the roaring forties was on November 18, 1980, when thermometer glasses almost shattered at 41.6 degrees.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said Moruya was certainly hot, but it still wasn't the hottest town this week.

Ivanhoe recorded a scorching 43 degrees on Tuesday, followed by Wilcannia and Hillson on 41, then Moruya, Wollongong, Bega and Merimbula on 40.

The spokesman said it was a little hotter than expected, but he said the current weather was typical for November.

Hot north-westerly winds dragged the heat from inland and dumped it over the coast, the spokesman explained.

"It probably will continue to happen as summer progresses," he said.

He expected this weekend to be a bit cooler, but warm enough to make for a great weekend on the beach.