The hero of the heat is Abdou Darboe. As temperatures soared to 37.4 degrees - 0.1 degrees short of the record for March - he was on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin working out.
At 3.45pm on Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology said it was 37.4 degrees, hotter than any day in summer and just short of the record 37.5 at Canberra airport on March 13, 1998.