It's easy to understand why Grand Strand tourism leaders have targeted the National Weather Service's new five-day hurricane-forecasting models as a major cause of the business falloff during the run-up to Hurricane Isabel. The models might - might - have given potential tourists two additional days to cancel Grand Strand travel plans.

But it's futile for Strand tourism leaders to entreat the NWS to abolish the five-day forecasts, as they plan to do this month. There's no way to be sure that the five-day forecasts caused the hotel-bookings falloff the week that Isabel came ashore, as compared with the same week of 2002.

Equally important, tilting at the NWS windmill over a scientific tool that gives people a head start on hurricane planning could make Strand leaders look foolish. The forecasts are a composite of forecasting models, including models from credible sources outside the NWS, and continually update information based on Navy flights into each storm's eye. In Isabel's case, the predictions proved accurate.

Indeed, the five-day forecasts might have made the falloffs in Grand Strand less severe. The NWS predicted early on that Isabel would hit the N.C. Outer Banks and that it would diminish to a Category Two hurricane. It's possible some visitors shored up Strand travel plans because of the five-day forecasts.

None of this is to suggest that Strand leaders don't have an issue with Isabel forecasting. They do. The Weather Channel, among other national electronic media, hyped the storm beyond decency, triggering irrational fear all along the Southeast coast.

True, the Weather Channel and other offenders may have based their forecasts on NWS information. But they, not the NWS, chose to abuse the information in order to boost their ratings.

Tropical storms and hurricanes are a fact of life in this part of the world. When they're bashing about in the Atlantic, coastal tourism venues from Key West to Ocean City, Md., as well as those along the Gulf of Mexico, tend to suffer.

Whether the five-day forecasts made the suffering here any worse is a matter of conjecture. Local tourism leaders would be wise to fight battles whose outcomes they can influence and decline to tilt at the NWS.