Snow removal early Thursday morning was the first thing on the mind of Greg Guenther, owner of The Palace, Eighth and Massachusetts streets. Guenther used a snowblower to remove some of the 5 inches of snow from the sidewalk in front of his store about 9 a.m. Thursday.

A winter storm dropped between 4 and 5 inches of snow in the Lawrence area overnight, leading officials at most area public schools to cancel classes Thursday.

The storm, which brought icy conditions to area highways, also led to many minor accidents on the Kansas Turnpike, law enforcement officials said.

Kansas Highway Patrol troopers said they dealt with 11 non-injury accidents Thursday morning on the turnpike. One, at 9:30 a.m. Thursday near the Lecompton interchange, involved a pickup truck and a car.

A dispatcher for the Kansas Turnpike Authority said that most of the accidents involved vehicles sliding off the roadway or colliding with a guard rail.

Slick rural roads led Lawrence school district officials to decide about 5:30 a.m. Thursday to cancel classes for the day, said Julie Boyle, district spokesman.

“Our folks were out looking at roads this morning. The rural roads are slick. We’ve got a lot of roads around town that are slick, so we’re closing down classes today for USD 497,” Boyle said. “Today is the first snow day of the school year.”

Boyle said Supt. Randy Weseman and the district’s director of safety transportation, the director of facility and operations and the manager at Laidlaw, the bus company, surveyed the roads Thursday morning, conferred and then decided to cancel classes.

Raintree Montessori and the Lawrence Catholic schools, which follow the lead of the Lawrence public schools, also canceled classes.

Tonganoxie, McLouth, Eudora, Perry-Lecompton, DeSoto, Baldwin, Wellsville and Ottawa schools also were among area school districts to cancel classes.

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Lynn Bretz, director of media relations for Kansas University, said about 6:15 a.m. Thursday that despite the snow, KU would go forward and conduct its first day of classes for the spring semester.

Other cancellations reported this morning include Green Pastures Pre-School, Head Start Community Children’s Center, Montessori Children’s School, Douglas Senior Services (all services canceled), LMH Hearts of Gold meeting and American Legion Post No. 14, 3408 W. Sixth.

The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department reported that indoor soccer practice for indoor sports had been canceled for the evening. All evening recreation and aquatic classes and adult sports leagues, however, will continue as scheduled. All parks and recreation facilities will be open for their normal Thursday hours,

Few accidents were reported to Lawrence police.

“With school out, obviously traffic was significantly reduced,” Sgt. Mike Pattrick said.

The Franklin County Sheriff’s office said one person suffered a minor injury when a vehicle overturned on Interstate 35 about 3 miles north of Ottawa.

Matt Makens, 6News meteorologist, said the official snow-accumulation numbers were 4 to 5 inches for the Lawrence area.

“Based on our information, southwest Lawrence had about 5 inches,” Makens said. “The winds will be strong, so we’ll have drifting and blowing snow for the rest of the afternoon.”

The high Thursday will be in the lower 20s, with wind chills in the single digits for the rest of the afternoon, he said. The wind chill was 6 degrees at 10 a.m.

The overnight temperature will fall to zero, with wind chills below zero, he said.

For more information, tune in to 6News at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunflower Broadband’s cable Channel 6 and pick up a copy of Friday’s Journal-World.