Why does the cold make your nose run?

Additionally, why do spicy hot foods make your nose run?

It’s paradoxical…

Sorry, I don’t know the answer to this question nor the one I just purported. But I find it interesting. I’d bet shilolo knows something about it.

It’s being chased by the flu.

NPR talked about this almost exactly one year ago…

I wonder how much of an effect each has. I’d guess the effect of condensation is relatively small.

Because… because… because all the little honeycomb cells in your nose and sinusus contract in the cold just as everything else does, and that forces the liquid out.

OR because your nasal passages generate warm fluid spontaneously in a way similar to sweating, in order to keep your delicate and somewhat isolated olfactory organ from freezing.

You must be built wrong. It’s my feet that run and my nose that smells.

I think it’s the plasma in the blood stream working extra hard to equalize the temperature, and the used part just drains away.

you guys make me chuckle!! :-)

I think (uneducated guess) that cold and certain spices stimulate the sinuses that way. I found that extreme cold (-30s and below) doesn’t do this, or maybe the fluid is too frozen to run. In the Antarctic winter, our noses were runny indoors but stopped outdoors.

It’s really tears from hating being so cold that you can’t cry out of your eyes because everyone will think you’re a sissy!

I think this is part of the reason people get sick more in the winter, your nose runs from the cold and you touch your nose more to wipe, and you get other peoples germs in your nose and bing bang boom your sick too. Don’t touch your face.