LEWISTON — Mother Nature kept authorities busy Monday evening as afternoon rain changed over to heavy, wet snow just about the time the 5 o’clock whistle blew. And if you think that brief snow burst was something, just wait until the end of the year.

“Usually when people know there’s a big storm coming, they slow down,” said Sgt. Donald Shead of the Maine State Police. “But this hit really fast. Plus, it happened right as everyone was going home from work. People really need to slow down and make sure they’ve got good tires, preferably snow tires.”

A dispatcher for the state police said that the law enforcement agency handled between 30 and 40 snow-related accidents between 4 and 8 p.m. Shead said of that number, only about a half-dozen of the crashes involved injury. Most were vehicles sliding off the road.

In Auburn, a parking ban went into effect 11 p.m. Monday and will go until at least 7 a.m. Tuesday. The ban included all roads in Auburn.

As of Monday evening, Lt. Timothy Cougle of the Auburn Police Department said that the department had handled four minor accidents — most of which involved cars off the road and most on roads in the outskirts of town. Dispatchers from both Androscoggin and Oxford counties said they were busy Monday night with crashes on roads throughout the region.

But the storm to really look out for is actually forming out West now, according to Michael Cempa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray. Cempa said that a storm system coming together out West is expected to track its way east this week before marching its way up the East Coast and arriving in New England by New Year’s Eve.

Cempa said that the National Weather Service is urging travelers to keep a close watch on weather conditions over the next few days. Weather experts can not predict what direction the storm will take, which will ultimately effect the amount of snowfall for the region. Unlike past storms that dumped snow and rain throughout the country before heading north, Cempa said that the upcoming storm is expected to gain strength as it moves up the coast.

“We’re in one of those situations where a 50-mile difference in the
track of the storm can mean the difference between a few inches of snow
and significantly more than a few inches.”