What is core punching?
‘Core punching’ refers to driving through a storm’s heaviest precipitation area to get to a better location, intentionally or unintentionally (NOT driving into a tornado, as portrayed in ‘Twister’). For instance, let’s say a chaser is on the north side of a storm, and wants to get to the south side to get a better view of the developing tornado. Now there’s only one road that leads in that direction, but the heavy precipitation area of the storm happens to be passing over that road – the chaser may elect to go through the precipitation (core punch) to get where he/she wants to go. The biggest dangers associated with core punching involve your car: 1.) the reduced visibility and hazardous road conditions caused by heavy rain and high winds, and 2.) large, damaging hail (sometimes baseball to softball-sized) that can shatter windows and inflict huge dents. Every year, many storm chasers experience costly damage to their cars from hail as a result of core punching. As a result, most exper
