Mark Twain once said he counted 136 kinds of weather in a single New England day. If he were around today, he’d probably be tuning in to his local TV station and going online for help with the task.

Twain would have plenty of company. A nationwide survey just out from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that nearly nine in 10 American adults check weather reports regularly. That adds up to about 300 billion forecasts annually.

The study is the first to comprehensively assess the public’s perception, use and value of forecasts. It appears in the June issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

President Obama says potentially historic flood levels in North Dakota are a clear example of why steps need to be taken to stop global warming. Heavy rain and blizzards have caused eight rivers in the state to swell to flood levels and emergency management officials are warily watching the Red River, which could surpass record levels late this week.

"If you look at the flooding that's going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, 'If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?'" Obama told reporters at the White House Monday. "That indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously."

Waters in the Red River were 33 feet this morning, according to CNN. That’s 15 feet above flood stage, and close to the record 41.1 feet set in April 1897, according to the network. The river could exceed those levels by Friday or Saturday, officials say.

The heavy snowfall in Western states that's been good news for skiers has come with a price: an unusual number of avalanche-related deaths on resort mountains.

Twelve people have died in U.S. avalanches since mid-December, and 10 in Canada, according to statistics kept by avalanche information centers. In the U.S., three of those deaths were "in bound" (within established ski trails) in Utah, Wyoming and California. That's the most in-bound fatalities since 1976, when three skiers at Lake Tahoe's Alpine Meadows resort perished in an avalanche, the New York Times reports today.

Tropical Storm Hanna may not be a hurricane, but it's still dumping tons of water on the US east coast as it moves northeast this afternoon. US officials have not reported any deaths from the storm, which is bearing down on New Jersey and will likely travel over Boston very early tomorrow morning, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Some 60,000 homes lost power in North Carolina earlier in the day, although more than a third of those had power back, Reuters is reporting. The storm has left as much as five inches of rain in some locations.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Hurricane Ike, which as of 5 p.m. EST Saturday was packing winds of 135 mph, making it an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane. Earlier, AccuWeather was predicting that Ike's strength will ebb and flow between Category 2 and 3 as it makes its way west through the Caribbean, hitting Cuba Monday morning as a Category 2. It will likely gather strength as it leaves Cuba for open Gulf of Mexico waters on Wednesday morning, which means it could threaten the Florida Keys. Officials there began evacuating residents this morning.