The nasty weather suffered by much of the country beginning in December is being used by many economists to explain the weakness in data ranging from employment to housing.

But Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, says there's more to the sluggish numbers than weather.

"The mantra of late when it comes to assessing the high frequency economic data has been to blame it on the weather," he writes in a commentary obtained by CNBC. "But it seems to us that folks are all too eager to dismiss what could potentially be some real underlying weakness."

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The declines in several statistics can simply be attributed to the weather, Porcelli admits. But that's not the case with non-farm payrolls or even housing, he argues.

To be sure, this doesn't signal a recession, but rather that enthusiasm may have grown too strong for the economy.

"This weakness is merely a reversion to the mean following rates of growth that, given the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, were never sustainable to begin with," Porcelli notes.

GDP grew 4.1 percent annualized in the third quarter and 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter.

Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics, remains upbeat about the economy. "The slowdown is testing everyone's optimism about the economy, but so far it's just a soft patch," he tells Reuters.

"The economy will regain strength. Outside housing, we don't believe the recent data signal a change in fundamentals." Moody's predicts growth of 3.1 percent for this year.

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