Do you core punch?

[Mike Hollingshead]

For whatever reason this question popped into my head today. It seems like it has been awhile since it's been talked about on here. So, do you core punch?

I'm often all for it, out of boredom, but there can be times where it just doesn't sound like a great plan of action. 90% of the time I do, it is just from boredom, on a storm that really only poses a hail threat and not so much tornado(often looking right at the storm from the east and just driving right into it to see what she's got).

The times I won't do it is when a meso wraps a bunch of hail(or just heavy precip) around and I'm on the west side trying to get east...if it's blocking the entire view(May 22, 2004 I would not drive east through the back of that thing...and I sooooo wanted to be east of it). It seems I'm not so worried coming from the north and punching south ahead of something, even if there are moments of anxiety while doing so. That almost seems backwards since one would think it'd be a bit safer trying to inch in from the west. Maybe it is because the view seems a bit better, not so heavily obscured, while punching south(some increase in contrast looking south instead of east into a heavy core).

Now that I think about it, I backed out of the north to south option on the May 29, 2004 supercell near Belleville KS. Several things were not working out right then and something just said, back off and let it go. I guess paranoia can get the better of you at times. I was all for it till my gps quit and I stopped to get it working, then the cell phone wouldn't work while trying to tell Randy what my plan was. Kept second guessing the first idea and getting more and more upset at things not working and said screw it and started driving back home.

I can think of a couple west to east punches. One was on May 10, 2003 in ne MO on what became a tornadic storm. I think this might be another reason I don't care to punch west to east much anymore. In that direction you are most often moving more with the storm, so you'll spend more time in the core. That storm was trucking and was coming up from the sw, and it seemed to take forever for me to get out of the core. I guess this is why punching north to south seems more enticing than west to east...if you really want to do it. I guess in a sense it's not much different than standing outside in lightning. Odds are bad anything bad will happen, but much better than if you don't. So I guess it comes down to what is worth what to who.

Maybe a good thread would be, what bad thing happened to you by core punching.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I sometimes core punch if the hail isn't too big. I will not destroy my car just to see a tornado. It just isn't worth it to me.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Core punching is a sometimes situation....and is depending on where I am chasing. I would be more apt to core punch a typical Missouri or Illinois supercell than a S.Plains supercell. Most of the times good sound chasing judgements can keep you from having to commit to blasting through the mean vault to get to the spot where the tornado could be viewed.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Touchy topic - by 'core' I assume to mean the area of heavy precip in a supercell. In that case, yes. If by 'core' you mean the large hail, then no, never. Core punching is the result of not being in a good position to start with - therefore it is not something I plan for. I do it only with Threatnet and only when necessary - that is, when it means the difference between missing or catching tornadoes. As Jason said, no hail damage is worth the tornado. If you destroy your car you will miss it anyway.

If I'm on the west side the hook (a very bad position that hopefully I can avoid in the first place), with radar in the car, it is possible to skirt around to the north of the large hail (on the north and west of the meso) assuming the closest east option is to the north. That saves you from having to lose time by going south of the storm to an east road, then back north. That's a lot of ground to cover. Hill City in '05 was an example of this, taking the north option and squeezing just north of the biggest hail to get ahead. That move got us five tornadoes - not punching would have got us 1 (low-contrast).

If you're north and a little east of the storm, plunging in southbound (to come out east of the meso) is fairly easy as long as you have radar. I've done this many times and avoided the hail. The key is timing - knowing where the meso is before you do it and making sure you have plenty of room to break through ahead of the hook. If it is going to be close, I still will do it (who wouldn't if there are tornadoes on the other side), but be on a hair trigger to turn around if I start seeing baseballs bouncing around. If you think it will be close, keep going east to gain ground on the storm until you know you'll have room to drop south.

Again, ThreatNet meso markers and storm tracks are very helpful in showing where the worst stuff is relative to you (remember to take into account the 5-10 minute data stream delay).

If I know there is a good chance I won't make it, I'll just let the storm cross the road and regroup after it passes. If you're going into a supercell's blinding precip, there is always risk of hail, but for the most part it is the area north and west of the meso you don't want to be.

 

[Paul Knightley]

We try as much as possible not to punch the core when we're over, largely because we don't want to wreck the rental car!

 

[Laura Hedien]

Yep we do!!! Sometimes that's all Ya get from the storm.
Given of course there isn't a rain wrapped tornado lurking somewhere about....
Laura

 

[David Wolfson]

It's like speeding. You shouldn't have to do it much if you had planned properly. There's different degrees of recklessness attendant to it. It can have very serious consequences all out of proportion to the benefit. Almost everyone will do it sometimes. It's easy to let it slip into becoming too much the rule rather than the exception. Do it much and you will very likely get tagged eventually.

 

[Rob Herman]

Depends on a lot of things, road network i.e. assuming I'm heading S, are there any good E route options to escape on, svr wx reports i.e. high winds, large hail, how bad it looks, visibility, traffic, cell size and speed, can I safely beat the meso. Radar helps, but only if it's up to date. I try to avoid it as much as possible.

 

[Karen Politte]

I voted for "sometimes" - obviously - as I don't have anything against it to play in medium-sized hail, but if the storm is overly HP and known or suspected to be tornadic - well......that's a different kettle of fish.

But to discuss this more we need to qualify the question "do you core punch?". Are we talking about punching cores (i.e. largest area of preip. in the storm that is separated from the area of rotation should there be one), or are we talking about punching hooks (i.e. area of precipitation directly adjacent to area of strongest rotation where meso has wrapped precip. around itself)??? As I see it - people here seem to be using the two terms interchangeably.

KL

 

[Brian Stertz]

When I think core punch Karen...it's picking my way through the hail and the misty rain curtains to get to the promised land. Amen to avoiding the HP blobs. To me there is nothing more dangerous than going baseball hail...heavy misty rain...and then TORNADO !!!!!

 

[John Hudson]

I'll only do it as an absolute last resort, as I've got too much respect for my vehicle (and my own personal safety) to make it commonplace. I hate to drive where the visibility hovers at around zero, and where rain and hail usually end up between the rubber and the road.

Not having the guidance of streaming weather data in the chase car is a good reason to err on the side of caution, unless I can visually confirm a punch can be done safely.

John
www.skywatch7.com

 

[David Drummond]

If I have current radar and a reasonable idea I'm not going to run through a tornado, I have no problems with going through a core. I built my chase vehicle entirely for chasing. That's it's purpose, and as such, I know it's subject to some damage from time to time. I accept that as part of it's purpose so it's not a concern for me as long as it's damage that isn't going to cause damage to ME. I do try to avoid anything baseball and larger though, just because I don't want to be taken out of a chase for a day or three trying to get glass replaced.

 

[Chris Hayes]

I dont like doing it, but we have core punched a few times. A couple times on purpose, couple on accident. On the night of May 22, 2005 a storm developed near Wichita so we went out to take lightning pictures. As we were nearin the storm, other storms began firing all around us. We got into hail on three occasions trying to get back to Wichita. The largest we got was the size of a baseball. The dent is still on the side of our chase vehicle. I dont like core punching though. If it's not necessary, I tend not to do it. It's one of the times I can get nervous while chasing.

 

[Susan Strom]

It totally depends on the situation. I won't with HPs though. (Would you punch this? http://www.lightninglady.com/photos/LLRoyalNE.jpg I won't)
The hail on it appeared large, visibility was poor, and it was warned on as imbedded tornado.

Sometimes you don't know how big the hail is until you're in it, as well. I did punch this little green one to get near the meso. http://www.lightninglady.com/photos/LLWoodward.jpg
Hail was tennis ball and was scary for a minute. The plus side was that there was plenty of sunlight underneath the meso, showing all the details. I could see everything.

As a photographer though, sometimes further back is actually better so you can get the structure. A safer position could yield a better photo anyway.

So I vote for "sometimes" and will add "but usually not".

 

[Cameron Redwine]

It's like speeding. You shouldn't have to do it much if you had planned properly. There's different degrees of recklessness attendant to it. It can have very serious consequences all out of proportion to the benefit. Almost everyone will do it sometimes. It's easy to let it slip into becoming too much the rule rather than the exception. Do it much and you will very likely get tagged eventually.

Well said.

Like most of you, I voted for sometimes but I am more cautious/knowledgeable than I used to be. I have had a couple of unpleasant core punching/grazing experiences, but it has been a few years. Both instances were due to the lack of proper consideration of the road networks and storm movement. My worst and most memorable core punch experience was on I-80 west of Sydney in June 1999. The problem started because I was west, trying to get east. I thought that I could get in front of the storm before it crossed the interstate, moving SE. I was wrong. Tennis balls followed by torrential rain brought traffic to a stand still and left me right on the edge of the core all during a tornado warning. It seemed to last forever, and scared the crap out of me at the time.

The other experience was in late July 2000 on a NW flow day in Kiowa County, just east of Eads. A solitary supercell, the only storm in town, had developed earlier in the day up in Yuma County and was moving slowly south-southeast. I got off of work in time to head east from Pueblo for an intercept. I was sitting in Tribune waiting for the storm to come to me, but it turned right and was moving due south. I headed back to the west on CO96, watching a very large and low wall cloud, just to the north of Eads. I went west quickly, hoping that I could reach US287 and get south ahead of the storm. The problem was that I was basically racing the storm to the intersection of US287 and CO96, and the storm got there first. I just caught the edge of the core about a mile from the intersection, but I was nailed by tennis balls. My windshield cracked slightly (I expected worse) but held. I had to turn back east (quickly) and get the only other decent south option before CO385, which was the poorly paved road that goes to May Valley, Culp, then Lamar. That turned out to be a pretty good choice, a choice that I should have made initially. I was able to parallel this beautifully structured tornado-warned storm from the east as it moved south, until I let it go around dusk. It produced a brief tornado north of McClave and several funnels, but the hail was the big story from that storm. CSP reported the large, low hanging wall cloud along 287 as a “large tornado” about the time that I was having the problem with the hail. Luckily for me, that was not the case. Yeah, so I am more cautious and a bit wiser than I was then. I try not to race storms anymore, especially when there is a lack of roads; it just isn’t worth it to me.