From staff and wire reports

Police reported several dozen accidents during Monday’s snowstorm across Maine, but no serious injuries. Some schools closed for the day or dismissed students early.

At 5 p.m., there had been three dozen accidents in Lewiston since the start of the day. Auburn had responded to more than 30.

“It’s the usual situation with storm-related accidents, mostly involving road conditions,” said Lewiston police Lt. Tom Avery. “People need to remember that they need to adjust their driving habits when it’s snowing and the roads are bad.”

At about 2 p.m., a car slid into a school bus on East Avenue in Lewiston. Nobody was hurt, but a tow-truck driver had to find a way to pull the front end of the car from beneath the bus.

In Auburn, a woman lost control of her car and slid into a house at about 3:50 p.m. Police said Lisa Hanna, 40, of Auburn was driving on West Auburn Road when her car slid out of control. It slammed into the corner of a house at 345 West Auburn Road, causing $1,500 to the building, $1,000 to her Chevrolet.

There were reports around the Androscoggin-Franklin-Oxford counties area of cars sliding off roads, into each other or into buildings. Maine State Police also responded to their share of crash reports, on the turnpike or on back roads.

By nightfall, roughly 4 inches of snow had fallen in most areas of Western Maine, according to the National Weather Service.

The snow caused numerous accidents throughout central and southern New Hampshire – state police said they were “buried” – and at least 200 schools were closed.

Before Monday, Portland had gotten just 4 inches of snow in January, which is 11 inches below normal and 22 inches below the snowfall total last year at this time.

A warm-up or two is common during January, said Kirk Apffel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray.

“The jet stream retreated well to the north and a lot of the cold air remained to the north,” he said. “It looks like in the upcoming week it’s going to be colder weather.”