ROCK HILL--Measuring in with 18 inches, Rock Hill topped the Weather Channel's list of snowfall amounts from the latest winter storm to hit the Southeast.

Thursday's storm was no normal one, dumping 18 inches of snow on this city about 20 miles south of Charlotte, sometimes at the rate of 2 inches an hour, paralyzing all of York County in drifts up to 3 feet high.

ANDY BURRISS/AP People make their way down Sumter Avenue in Rock Hill, where 18 inches of snow Friday left walking about the only way to move around.

"Off the main roads, anything but a four-wheel drive is useless," York County Emergency Management Director Cotton Howell said. "This kind of snow is unprecedented in my memory."

The storm caused four traffic deaths statewide, three Thursday night and one Friday, the Public Safety Department said. In all, state troopers reported more than 1,400 wrecks from the time the snow started until noon Friday, when most winter storm warnings expired.

The storm also dumped nearly a foot of snow across much of North Carolina. One to 3 inches also fell in north Georgia and eastern Kentucky.

The only hint of snow in the Charleston area Friday was possible flurries near North Charleston and a few areas of light sleet, according to meteorologist Richard Thacker with the National Weather Service.

Conditions were to improve through the night, and today was expected to be a change from the past few days with temperatures in the low to mid-50s with cloudy skies giving way to sunshine, Thacker said.

The snow fell in two bands, one Thursday morning and a second Thursday night.

Some Rock Hill residents, yardsticks in hand, say the 18-inch measurement might have been a little low.

Official records aren't kept in Rock Hill, but the city's unofficial weather observer can't remember more snow in 125 years of data. Howell said longtime residents say it's the worst storm in the past century.

While the heaviest snow was confined to eastern York County, areas from Whitmire and Gaffney to Union and Chesterfield saw 10 inches of snow or more, the weather service reported. The snow amounts lessened further south and west, but areas from Newberry to Winnsboro saw 4 to 6 inches, and a dusting of snow fell as far south as Columbia.

A few flurries and snow showers hung around Friday, but the weather was expected to clear quickly, and temperatures in most areas with snow to reach the 60s by Sunday, forecasters say.

"But it will take more than one day in the 60s to melt all of this away," Howell said.

The wintry weather postponed a number of high school basketball playoff games.

Schools across the northern half of the state closed or were on a two-hour delay. State offices in 18 counties delayed opening, while Gov. Mark Sanford closed offices in Cherokee, Chester, Chesterfield, Lancaster, Newberry, Union and York.

While the 18 inches of snow in Rock Hill didn't break the state record of 24 inches set in the Clarendon County town of Rimini in 1973, some records across the state were broken.

The 8 inches of snow that fell at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport shattered the old record for Feb. 26 of 5.1 inches set in 1982.

The freak nature of the storm was caused by the excessive amount of moisture brought in from the Gulf of Mexico, Clemson University Agricultural Meteorologist Dale Linvill said.