They do that here in Minnesota too in areas where there's no "storage room" for the snow such as downtown.
After big snowfalls, they plow enough to get traffic moving but it fills up the areas along the curbs. Once all the plowing is done in town, they pull the windrows into the center of the street and then do the blower-dump truck thing to remove the snow. This is usually done in the wee small hours of the morning so unless you're up very early, you won't see them doing it. It is a great way to get rid of the snow.
The trucks dump in a large gravel surface area that is used exclusively for dumping snow in the winter. It is sloped to a large storm drain inlet (Pair of 36"X36" box culverts) that drain directly to the river when it all melts in the spring.
Some winters, like last year, it hardly ever gets used but the winter of 2010-2011 we had 85 inches of snow and there was a real mountain range of snow in the lot.
