LEWISTON — Conflicting early predictions began to align Tuesday as weather forecasters resigned themselves to the likelihood that Wednesday’s impending snowstorm would indeed serve central Maine with a hearty helping of pre-Thanksgiving snow.

“It’s cold enough for snow and there will be snow,” National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Schwibs said Tuesday evening. The weather service issued a winter storm warning for Tuesday night and Wednesday shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday.

The storm would begin around 3 or 4 a.m., Schwibs said, and would continue on through most of the day, dumping heavily in the late morning and early afternoon.

Lewiston and points north of the city will be in the storm’s “sweet spot” where the heaviest snowfalls will occur, he said. Lewiston can expect about 10 inches, and towns in the Turner and Paris areas will likely get more than a foot, he said.

“It’s a high-impact event” because the day before Thanksgiving is one of the most heavily traveled of the year, Schwibs said, noting that Thanksgiving itself should be clear and sunny.

“It being a travel day, it’s not very well-timed,” he said. Both air and road traffic could be disrupted, he said, even to the south where snow will change to rain between Portland and Wells, he said.

Area police and public works departments took note. Auburn and Lewiston issued daytime parking bans and prepared plows and sand trucks for dispatch on Wednesday.

“We’ve been watching (the forecasts) all day,” Lewiston Public Works director Dave Jones said Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve got reports of everything from zero to 13 inches.”

“We’ll be all set to deal with whatever we get tomorrow,” he said.

If the snow accumulates as quickly as the weather service predicted — an inch per hour for up to eight hours during the day Wednesday — “That’ll be a pretty challenging storm to keep up with,” Jones said.

Schools in Lewiston and Auburn don’t risk adding an early snow day to their year because of a scheduled holiday in Lewiston and a teacher workshop day in Auburn, Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster said.

“We’re fortunate that there’s no school tomorrow for students and teachers,” Webster said Tuesday. “Everything I’ve read indicates that there would be no school tomorrow” had Wednesday been a planned school day.

Lewiston had five snow days last year, he said, and he was happy not to add one this early in the season this year.

Others have had less luck. If the storm forces them to cancel another day of classes on Wednesday, “that would rack up the third storm day of the year” before December even begins, SAD 17 Superintendent Richard Colpitts said. SAD 17 lost two days at the beginning of the school year when Tropical Storm Irene left schools without power.