Its well known that the flu ebbs and flows with the weather each year. During the colder months, the virus strikes hard, infecting millions nationwide but when spring rolls around, the illness begins to lose strength and flu activity subsides until the next cold season.

Thats because respiratory viruses like the flu are more powerful in cool, dry air . The colder temps allow them to multiply easier and spread faster. With spring right around the corner, many are wondering if like the flu coronavirus cases may dwindle with the warmer weather.

Around the world, infectious disease experts are hoping this will be the case, though its still too soon to know exactly how the novel coronavirus (known as COVID-19) will respond to the new season. Remember, weve never seen this virus before, and researchers are scrambling to figure out how this disease survives and spreads. Heres what we know so far:

Weather has affected other coronaviruses

Before COVID-19, other coronaviruses triggered an international public health emergency: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle-Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012.

These coronaviruses arent the same, but they do share a handful of similarities. The makeup of COVID-19 is about a 79% match to SARS-CoV and a 50% match to MERS, so we can potentially learn a thing or two from how those outbreaks played out.

Looking back at SARS, one study identified an 18-fold increase of infections in colder temps compared to warmer days. Another report looked at how the virus behaved in different environments and found that its viability rapidly declined at higher temperatures and humidity levels. The researchers found the SARS virus became increasingly inactivated as temperatures and humidity rose.

Similarly to SARS, MERS which was mostly spread from animals to humans also seemed to be stronger in cold, dry weather. Researchers in one study stated, coronaviruses have been shown to exhibit strong seasonal variation in natural hosts. They found that that colder, drier conditions increased the risk of MERS transmission from camels to humans.

Four coronaviruses circulate around the world every year, causing common colds. Studies have shown theyre also more prevalent in the fall and winter compared to the summer months.

Dr. Charles Gerba , a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Arizona, told HuffPost he expects COVID-19 to pan out similarly to other coronaviruses, given that its spreading and behaving a lot like the common cold coronaviruses.

So, its possible COVID-19 could calm down come late spring but its not a guarantee.

Viruses can be unpredictable, so it is very important to be cautiously optimistic about this, said Dr. Ellen Foxman , a Yale Medicine clinical pathologist and researcher in the schools Department of Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Virology Laboratory. This is a rapidly evolving situation, Foxman added, and infectious disease experts will need to continually reevaluate their plans as they learn more.