After a dismal El Nino-ish start to 2010 that saw hardly any snow fall in the mountains, leaving skiers and drought monitors with some nervous butterflies in their stomach, the snow has come back to the hills in a hurry.

The weather pattern cooled significantly, and the mountains saw a series of storms over March and early April that dumped feet of snow at a time.

I know March Madness was, well, done with March but to reach back and borrow a college basketball reference, this is like being down 15 at half and storming back to tie the game at the buzzer.

Snowpack totals as of April 15 are running just about climate average now, ranging from rougly 80-120 percent of normal depending on where you are looking.

Contrast that with mid-February where it was generally 60-80 percent of normal. Considering this is an El Nino winter that are typically marked with lower-than-average snowpacks, this is good news in that we may have dodged a bullet with this year's El Nino.

Anyway, here are the official stats below:

CLIMATOLOGICAL SNOWDEPTH INFORMATION
NORTHWEST WEATHER AND AVALANCHE CENTER SEATTLE WASHINGTON
DAY  15  MONTH  4  YEAR  2010

DATA IN INCHES, -99 DENOTES MISSING DATA

            CURRENT  CLIMATE  PER CENT   LAST  THRU 2009  THRU 2009
            DEPTH    AVERAGE  OF NORMAL  YEAR  MAX/YEAR   MIN/YEAR

HURRICANE   111      109      102         92   252/1999    51/2005
MT BAKER    184      166      111        145   290/1999    56/1934
STEVENS      86       94       91        102   170/1956    17/1941
SNOQUALMIE   56       72       78         89   153/1974     0/1992
STAMPEDE     68       99       69        111   216/1964     9/1992
MISSION      51       45      113         44    79/1983    21/1990
CRYSTAL      86       72      119         87   130/1999    30/1981
PARADISE    163      172       95        176   302/1972    68/1934
WHITE PASS   53       44      120         65    95/1997     0/1992
TIMBERLINE  163      164       99        211   300/1999    71/1977
MEADOWS     131      126      104        160   194/2008    54/2005

THIS TABLE PRODUCED ON THE 1ST AND 15TH BETWEEN 15 NOVEMBER AND 1 MAY.

AVERAGES, MAXIMUMS AND MINIMUMS EARLY AND LATE IN THE SEASON MAY BE
INACCURATE DUE TO LIMITED DATA.

RECORDS BEGIN: HURRICANE 1979, MT BAKER 1926, STEVENS 1939,
SNOQUALMIE 1929, STAMPEDE 1943, MISSION RIDGE 1970,
CRYSTAL 1967, PARADISE 1926, WHITE PASS 1976,
TIMBERLINE 1973, MT HOOD MEADOWS 1974.