Are weak retail sales a warning sign for economy?

If you've been busy shoveling snow and haven't heard yet, retail sales fell 0.4% in January, a weak reading considering Wall Street was expecting sales to be unchanged from the previous month.

Nasty weather has played a big role in the dearth of spending, even though shopping is an All-American pursuit that ranks right up there with watching a ballgame or sipping a cocktail.

Americans are more hunkered down in survival mode than they are a live-and-let-live mentality. "You can't focus on your normal life. We are not being consumers," says Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. "To question the notion that retail sales were affected by weather means people are not looking out the window."

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SLOWDOWN?: Winter storms threaten to chill economy

Whether stormy weather is a valid excuse to explain why shoppers aren't shopping, slowing sales at the nation's malls, restaurants and online retailers, are having a negative impact on the economy.

In fact, it is one of the main reasons why economists are dialing back their growth expectations.

Thursday, Barclays cut its final fourth-quarter GDP estimate to 2.3% from 2.6%, which is below the government's 3.2% estimate from Jan. 30.

Capital Economics says first-quarter growth could come in between 2% and 2.5%, well below the 3% growth Wall Street is hoping for in 2014.

The good news? "Haircuts to GDP" have not yet caused corporate profit estimates to suffer similar-size trims, says Sonders. But it's something to keep an eye on.