New York City was hit with its biggest snowfall in several years on Friday and Saturday. By 7 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service said, 4.3 inches of snow blanketed Central Park, the first time more than four inches had fallen since January 2022.

The storm dropped up to nine inches north and east of the city, in Connecticut, Long Island and the Hudson Valley, before it pulled away Saturday morning.

After bracing for harsh weather that threatened to wreak havoc, New York City dodged the worst of the storm. City residents awoke on Saturday to what has become a relative rarity: sidewalks in need of shoveling and hills ready for sleds.

The snowfall, some of it mixed with sleet Friday night, made many streets and highways icy and dangerous. The governors of New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency.

By midday on Saturday, streets had been mostly cleared, and piles of slush pooled on curbsides. Every street in the city had been plowed at least once by 6 a.m., Mayor Eric Adams said during an appearance on WABC-TV Saturday morning.

Even so, the mayor advised New Yorkers to stay inside. “This is a good baby-making day,” he declared.

Roads may get icy again Saturday night, with temperatures forecast to dip to 21 in the city. On Sunday, a high of 40 degrees in the city will melt much of the snow, and rain and a high around 50 on Monday will probably render most of it a Christmassy memory. Even with the warm snap, this December is still on track to be the coldest since 2017.

The storm forced the cancellations of hundreds of flights at the region’s three major airports, stranding many on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. As of 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, about 20 percent of flights from LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports were canceled, and more than 30 percent were delayed, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Jean and Lawrence Schindelheim of Long Island had planned to fly from Kennedy to Puerto Rico with their two children on Saturday morning for a cruise trip in honor of Mr. Schindelheim’s 60th birthday. The boat departs on Sunday, but on Friday morning, JetBlue canceled the family’s flight and left them scrambling to find another way to get there.

“JetBlue said they would get us on a different flight, and then they came back an hour later and said, ‘Find another flight yourself,’” Ms. Schindelheim said Saturday morning at the terminal at Kennedy.

Nearby in the airport, Rebecca Mazumdar was holding out hope that her flight to India to see her in-laws would depart as scheduled later in the day. Ms. Mazumdar, who lives in Clifton, N.J., had paid about $700 for a last-minute reservation at the T.W.A. Hotel at Kennedy on Friday to avoid getting caught in the storm.

“I wish there was a little more snow to make me feel like that was worthwhile,” she said.

The smaller accumulation in the city was the result of several factors, said David Stark, a Weather Service meteorologist. A layer of slightly warmer air, about 5,000 to 10,000 feet above the ground, turned some of the snow into sleet during the period Friday night when the snowfall was expected to be most intense, he said.

The conditions that meteorologists had predicted for the city also shifted about 40 or 50 miles to the north and east, toward Connecticut and Long Island, resulting in more snow there, Mr. Stark said.

“Sometimes these ingredients are really hard to pinpoint and nail down up until the event actually starts developing,” he said. “Forty miles is not much when you think about it, but with snow it does make a big difference.”

As of 4 p.m. on Saturday, the Weather Service reported accumulations of 7.8 inches in Cold Spring, N.Y., 50 miles north of the city and 9.4 inches in New Fairfield, Conn., 55 miles northeast of New York. Orient, N.Y., in Suffolk County on Long Island, received 7.5 inches of snow. Lyndhurst, N.J., got five inches. And LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark Airports all recorded just over four inches.

The heaviest snowfall recorded in the wider region was at Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills, 120 miles northwest of New York City, where 13 inches fell.

Heavy snow has been uncommon in New York City in recent years. Last winter, the city recorded barely over a foot for the season, an increase from 7.5 inches the previous winter and just 2.3 inches the winter before that. From 2022 to 2024, the city went nearly two full years without meaningful snowfall.

On Saturday morning in Clifton, snow fell lightly as residents worked to clear their driveways. Vicente Longinos, a landscaper with clients in the area, pushed a small barrel that dispensed salt. “We’re on the go nonstop,” he said in Spanish.

In Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, children rocketed down a powder-covered hill on snowboards, sleds and plastic saucers as parents snapped photos from the sidelines.

Anja Tyson, a former Brooklynite who now lives in SoHo, shouted gleeful directions as her two children took turns on the slope. Ms. Tyson said she came to the park because there was no sledding in her Manhattan neighborhood.

“This is an epic slope,” she said. “It brings the whole city together.”

A few blocks away, Earl Smith was the first one on his block out shoveling the walkway in front of his brownstone.

“My neighbors always laugh at me,” Mr. Smith, 67, said as he shook rock salt out of a plastic tub onto an already immaculate rectangle of sidewalk. “Soon as I see snow or I hear it’s going to snow, I’ll put salt out here,” he said, adding: “I don’t like shoveling, but I like the snow.”

Darlene Smith, stepping outside for a quick peek, didn’t share her husband’s enthusiasm. “I hate snow,” she said.

Gabe Castro-Root, Sean Piccoli, Kieran Corcoran and Jacob Amaro contributed reporting.