Winter storm Euclid blew into Maine on Thursday, shutting down local and state government operations, canceling flights out of Bangor and Portland, and making roads messy and potentially dangerous for holiday travelers.

Parts of the state will be covered by up to 18 inches of snow by early today, according to the National Weather Service.

Unofficial reports put the snowfall totals at 10 inches in Freeport and Wiscasset and 12 inches in Bath, but strong winds made accurate measurement difficult. Winds gusted above 45 mph on Thursday, according to several unofficial observations reported to the National Weather Service.

Speeds were reduced to 45 mph on the Maine Turnpike all day Thursday, limiting the number of serious traffic incidents, authorities said.

“I would say we had a traditional nor’easter. The most significant impact of this storm was felt mostly in interior portions of the Northeast,” Todd Foisy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou, said Thursday night. “There have been some pretty significant winds with this storm, some gusts as high as 45 to 50 miles per hour in our forecast area, from Bangor east.”

Foisy said the strongest gusts measured 70 mph on Criehaven, the farthest offshore inhabited island on the East Coast. Criehaven, also known as Ragged Island, is near Matinicus Rock and southeast of Rockland.

Foisy said that as of 5 p.m. Thursday, Aroostook County had just 2 inches of snowfall. That figure rose to 4 inches in Caribou at 7 p.m. and 5 inches in Presque Isle at 7:45 p.m.

“In northern Maine, it’s really been cranking up since early afternoon and will continue on with the heaviest snowfall between now and 1 a.m.,” said Foisy.

The storm developed from a powerful squall that spawned tornadoes from Texas to Alabama, killing at least nine people and leaving thousands without power.

Most government and school offices in Maine were closed Thursday.

The heaviest accumulations likely occurred farther north, in the Mount Katahdin, Greenville and Houlton areas.

While many flights were going off without a hitch at the Portland International Jetport, the storm kept a few planes on the ground in Bangor.

As of 9:30 a.m. Thursday, only six departures out of Portland had been canceled, according to airport marketing director Gregory Hughes.

“When I came in a little before 7, I came in off the turnpike and there were a gazillion plows out there,” Hughes said.

Two US Airways flights from Portland to Washington, D.C., were canceled, along with two departures to Philadelphia on US Airways and two Delta departures between Portland and Detroit.

In Bangor, two early morning US Airways flights went off without a hitch to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., respectively, but there were many cancellations, airport director Tony Caruso said.

All outbound flights from Bangor to Detroit were canceled, Caruso said, along with the remainder of US Air’s scheduled departures to Philadelphia and Washington. Allegiant Air’s regular departures from Bangor to Sanford, Fla., were scheduled for noon and 6 p.m. while Delta’s departures from Bangor to New York late Thursday morning and early Thursday afternoon were canceled.

“The Allegiant flight to Sanford departed an hour late, around 1 or 1:30 p.m.,” said Caruso, noting that the last scheduled flight to cancel — Allegiant Air’s 6 p.m. flight to Sanford, Fla. — was canceled around 2 p.m.

Bus transportation went off without a hitch throughout the state as well. A ticket agent at Concord Coach Lines said all departures out of Bangor and Portland went off as scheduled, with no reported cancellations.

Police dispatchers in central Maine said there have been only minor accidents associated with the storm, with no one seriously injured.

All the anticipated snow also means fun for state snowmobilers and money for the snowmobile industry, said Bob Meyers, executive director of the Maine Snowmobile Association.

Storms last week created snowmobiling conditions from Millinocket up to the Canadian border, if not bases upon which conditions can be built, Meyers said.

FOR MORE, see the Bangor Daily News at bangordailynews.com.