A rare blizzard warning is in effect today for a storm forecasters promise will dump up to 2 feet of snow on the Mid-coast with fierce winds, huge drifts and whiteout conditions through Saturday.

The blizzard warning for much of coastal Maine begins this afternoon and continues until late Saturday afternoon.

“This one doesn’t come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm,” said Alan Dunham, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. “Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon and don’t plan on leaving.”

The forecast calls for a historic storm packing a nasty combination of heavy snow and strong winds, reduced visibility, and gusts of up to 45 mph, with snow accumulations of 18 to 24 inches.

Transportation took a hit early today as a major multicar crash blamed on conditions closed Interstate 295 in Falmouth. The Amtrak Downeaster canceled its early-evening runs from Brunswick and Freeport to Boston, meaning that the 7:05 a.m. departure from Brunswick and the 7:20 from Freeport would be the only ones of the day.

Classes were canceled in Brunswick schools, Regional School Unit 1 of Bath, RSU 5 of Freeport, RSU 75 of Topsham and RSU 12, which includes Wiscasset schools.

In West Bath, the transfer station will not be open for public dropoff on Saturday.

Those who have no choice but to drive in the storm will find themselves behind snow plows, or churning through snow. Anyone outside will have to deal with high wind gusts, and there’s a strong likelihood that homeowners will lose power.

In Bath, the public works crew was prepared to work around the clock. Workers began pretreating streets with salt at 6:30 a.m.

“Everybody’s double-checking their blades and making sure they’re reading to go,” Bath public works foreman Earl Hay said.

Normally, Hay said, plow truck drivers open their routes up, take a break and go back out.

Not so on this day.

“This one’s going to be pretty much a constant if it comes like they say it will,” Hay said. “They’ll go around two or three times, then take a break. They’re going to be here for the duration. We’ll stay with it and get it done. We’ve got a good crew.”

A Brunswick police dispatcher said that as of 7:15 a.m., there were no parking bans planned. The dispatcher advised people to watch the news and be aware of the latest conditions.

There is a parking ban on all Freeport streets, until 7 a.m. Sunday, so that public works can open up the streets in the busy shopping mecca. The parking garage will remain open as will L.L. Bean — as always.

Lt. Susan Nourse of the Freeport Police Department advises caution. “We’re hoping that people heed the warnings and stay home,” Nourse said.

Forecaster Mike Cempa says the last time the National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for Maine was in December 2010.

Cempa says the height of the storm will be tonight into early Saturday, with snow falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour.

“We’re at the point where all the models are doing the same thing, and they’re all giving us a big snow event,” said Tom Hawley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the agency’s Gray office. “While there’s still a chance it could bob or weave one way or the other and give us a different forecast, I’d say there’s less than a 20 percent chance of that happening.”

That means expectations of more than a foot of snowfall and wind gusts of as great as 65 mph during an approximately 24-hour period beginning this morning.

“It still looks like snow starting in Portland before noon (today), getting heavy (tonight) and ending about noon on Saturday,” Hawley said. “It still looks like about a foot of snow in Portland, maybe more, and quite windy, so a lot of blowing and drifting.”

High temperatures today are forecast to be in the lowto mid-20s, he said, with overnight temperatures dipping to about 15 degrees.

Saturday will be a bit colder, with highs reaching 20, Hawley said. Friday winds are expected to reach 20 mph, picking up to between 25 and 35 mph overnight and into Saturday, with gusts in coastal areas forecast to whip through at speeds of 65 mph.

The storm is expected to hit Maine almost 35 years to the day after the famed blizzard of 1978, which brought more than 2 feet of snow to southern parts of New England, killing nearly 100 people and causing $1.85 billion in damage in today’s money.

That storm, which blasted Boston, Providence, R.I., and Atlantic City, N.J., with historic levels of snow, was less catastrophic in Maine, where residents saw 7.9 inches of snow, Hawley said. The Portland area’s biggest snowstorm came on Jan. 17-18 of 1979, bringing 27.1 inches of the white stuff, 24.4 inches of which fell in a 24-hour period, he said.

Alex Sosnowski, expert senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com, wrote in a Thursday post that Portland will be among the hardest-hit areas in New England, with dry air feeding in from the north potentially limiting the advance of the storm into the northernmost parts of Maine.

In expectation of the nasty weather, numerous events around the state have been canceled or postponed.

Several championship events around the state in track and field, cheerleading and wrestling have been called off. And the Maine Principals’ Association confirmed that state championships in high school cheerleading and wrestling slated for Saturday have been postponed.

The state cheering championships will be made up at 4:30 p.m. Monday at the Bangor Auditorium, while the state wrestling meets have been pushed back to Feb. 16.

The wrestling championships were originally slated to be held at the Augusta Civic Center, but will take place at three different sites, with Class A at Sanford High School, Class B at Fryeburg Academy and Class C at Foxcroft Academy.

Saturday’s Eastern Maine Indoor Track League championships, scheduled for 4 p.m. at the University of Maine, has been postponed to Monday. Field events are scheduled to kick off at 3:45 p.m. with the running events getting under way at 4.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife announced Friday that services in remembrance of Warden Maj. Gregory Sanborn have been postponed due to the weather.

Calling hours will now be held Sunday from 4 until 6 p.m. and from 7 until 9 p.m. The celebration of life ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Monday. Both will be held at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro.

Sanborn’s family chose to change the dates to ensure the safety of those wishing to travel to the services. Another concern: Many law enforcement personnel are expected to attend; during the storm, they will likely be responding to a high volume of calls.

TIMES RECORD staff writer Larry Grard, Bangor Daily News staff writer Seth Koenig and The Associated Press contributed to this report.