Wilfred Spaulding runs errands in downtown Lewiston during Tuesday’s snowstorm. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)

A group of runners brave the snowstorm and go for a run on Lincoln Street in Lewiston on Tuesday afternoon. (Andree Kehn /Sun Journal)Danny Rogers and his dog Maize head back indoors to work at Bourgeois Guitars in Lewiston during the height of the storm. (Andree Kehn /Sun Journal)

What was shaping up to be the area’s heaviest snowfall of the winter, storm Skylar, was dumping a predicted 18 inches of snow on central and western Maine Tuesday afternoon. 

Heavier snow — at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour — will linger into tonight then change over to lighter snow — an inch or less per hour — overnight through mid-morning Wednesday, said Eric Schwibs, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Gray.

Winds today will run 15 to 25 mph with higher gusts, causing blowing and drifting snow before it diminishes overnight, he said.

By Wednesday later morning, temperatures likely will be in the mid- to upper-30s, he said.

Models predict today’s storm will be similar to last Thursday’s nor’easter, but actual comparisons won’t be made until this storm has passed, he said. Unlike the heavy snow dumped by last week’s storm, shoveling this lighter snow is likely to be easier this time around, Schwibs said.

“This is normal,” he said. “We often see snowstorms is March.”

Don’t put those snow shovels away just yet.

In fact, he added, “There’s the potential next Wednesday for a nor’easter. So, we’ll have to watch that carefully.”

The storm triggered school closings, court closings and parking bans.

Eighteen of 799 Central Maine Power Company customers in New Sharon had lost power by mid-afternoon.

In Oxford County, only two of 384 Sweden customers were without power.