Gunnison

An Avalanche Watch is in effect for the West Elk, Ragged, and Elk Mountains. Strong winds and heavy snowfall will create very dangerous avalanche conditions Tuesday night and continue through Wednesday night. Travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended during this period.

For Tuesday, you can easily trigger a dangerous avalanche on wind-loaded terrain features facing northwest to east through southeast. The avalanche danger will slowly increase throughout the day and you can expect avalanches to grow in size and be easier to trigger by Tuesday afternoon. Watch out for unusual wind-loading patterns lower in the terrain than you may be used to seeing. You can reduce your chances of being caught in an avalanche by avoiding the lee sides of ridgelines and steep slopes with a smooth, rounded, often wave-like surface appearance indicating the presence of wind-drifted snow.