The first day of winter Sunday will greet Mainers with snow.

A lot of snow.

A winter storm warning was issued Saturday for southern, central and western Maine from 1 p.m. Sunday through 7 a.m. Monday. The National Weather Service is calling for below-freezing temperatures, high winds and 10 to 16 inches of snow.

“It’s going to be quite a blow considering the winds that are going to whip up and you’re going to have a lot of blowing and drifting snow: a winter wonderland,” said George Wiseman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Snow is expected to begin in the afternoon Sunday and become heavy at times. Most of the area can expect 4 to 8 inches by Sunday evening, Wiseman said. Another 6 to 10 inches are expected overnight. Some areas may also see a mix of precipitation.

Snow is expected to taper off Sunday night and into Monday morning, but it will remain windy and temperatures will hover in the low 20s.

Maine isn’t alone in its winter misery. On Saturday, the Northwest and Midwest were battered by the same storm that’s heading to New England.

Washington state braced for hurricane-force winds as the storm blew in from the Pacific. The temperature dipped to minus 18 in Spokane, which expected up to 6 inches of snow on top of the 25 that had fallen in the past three days, said Johnny Burg, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

In Illinois, cold was the biggest concern. There, the Weather Service canceled a storm watch in the north but warned that freezing temperatures could cause flooding from ice jams on rivers near the Quad Cities and Rockford.

In North Dakota, it was all about snow. The total there for December nearly matched the 19.3 inches that fell all last winter, said meteorologist Joshua Scheck at the National Weather Service office in Bismarck.

Many states had to brace for this weekend’s storm while still recovering from last week’s ice storm. About 80,000 customers in northern Indiana had no power and more than 20,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity in New Hampshire.

Mainers at least won’t have to prepare for this latest storm in the dark. Most Central Maine Power Co. customers had power back by last Wednesday.

Lewiston has issued a parking ban for Sunday’s storm. There will be no parking on public streets between noon Sunday and 4 p.m. Monday.

Auburn had not issued a parking ban by Saturday night but was expected to announce one on Sunday.

It will be the second storm in three days for a large part of Maine. On Friday, central Maine got 4 to 8 inches of snow and far southern Maine received 6 to 10 inches.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.