Does cold weather make you sick?

According to WebMD, cold weather does not cause illness, germs do. In fact, people who are cold are not any more likely to get sick than those who stay warm, says The Weather Channel. People tend to get sicker during colder months, but cold temperatures alone are not responsible.

Illnesses are more prevalent during colder months for a wide variety of reasons. People tend to stay indoors and are in closer proximity to one another when it is cold outside, which allows illness to spread, notes Healthline. Additionally, central heating systems may cause germs to spread, and certain germs spread more quickly in cold and dry weather, according to the National Institutes of Health.