I dunno - storm drains can go down quite far into the ground, where heat from lower ground can help keep it thawed - or at least not quite as hard-frozen. Up here by the Canadian border, not unusual for the ground to freeze up to 9' down. Fortunately though, this is a high water area, so the ground doesn't usually get frozen that far down, as it takes more to freeze the water deep down than the soil.
I also remember seeing something online a couple years back about some larger cities that were beginning to melt their snow in lieu if hauling it to one or more dump sites. Dang, I wish my memory worked better!! However in this instance, it seems that the snow was hauled to central locations and would then dump their loads of snow onto metal grates, then the snow would drop down and be melted. Don't know where it went from there - maybe into the storm drainage system?
