Fear not, residents of south St. Louis. The Budweiser sign will light again.

Eagle-eyed colleague Nick Pistor noted that the iconic red Budweiser sign over Anheuser-Busch's Bevo brewery on South Broadway has been dark these last few nights.

Last night, he even went and snapped a picture. Sure enough, no sign on the night sky.

So we wondered, as newsmen do, what gives? A blown fuse? Budget cuts? Sabotage by MillerCoors? Are the Clydesdales next?

Turns out, it's just the weather.

The old sign often gets switched off when it's cold and rainy like it has been the last few days, said A-B InBev spokesman Michael Lourie. When water gets inside, Lourie said, it risks shorting out whole chunks of letters. And while "Bud - Weis - Er" was a fun advertising hook for awhile back in the day, it's not how A-B wants its sign to look, minus the "Bud" or the "Weis." So they simply turn it off.

"It's a vintage, iconic sign and we want to maintain it," Lourie said.

That sounds eminently reasonable. Prudent, even. And the forecast tells us this nasty weather should clear up soon. So hopefully Budweiser will glow red over the south side night by the weekend.

If not, well, we just might put in a call to those folks from Miller.