Huge piles of snow are still here in Philadelphia nearly 1 month after snowstorm. When will they melt?

It's been nearly a month since Philadelphia received its most significant snowstorm in the past 10 years, dropping over 9 inches of snow across the city.

The Jan. 25 storm closed schools and residents spent days digging out in frigid Arctic cold temperatures with whipping winds.

While the ground finally revealed itself in spots earlier this month, after some relatively warm days, there are plenty of neighborhoods still dealing with the aftermath — massive piles of snow that the city dumped at around 30 sites.

And the piles won't be going away in the next few days — temperatures are set to get colder next week, and our NEXT Weather Team expects we could see more snowfall Sunday.

Even before we add some more snow to the equation, some of these piles are over 10 feet high, if not 20 feet, towering over communities and frustrating residents.

"Frustration, because it should have been gone by now," said one West Philadelphia resident who goes by "Smoke."

"It's hard to park, I'm handicapped, it's hard to get in and out ... there's cars double-parking, it's taking half an hour to get through a block," he said. 

The city says more than 200 pieces of equipment were deployed, including a snow melter brought in from Chicago, which melted an estimated 4.7 million pounds of snow in the first two days alone. After that, crews transitioned to hauling operations, moving the snow to these melting sites.

The total cost of the response, including first responders, water main breaks and warming centers, was nearly $59 million.

How long will the snow piles take to melt?

To say the least, you wouldn't want to make a snow cone from these piles — there's plenty of dirt and debris in them.

On the plus side, our Meteorologist Kate Bilo says dirty snow actually melts faster. Darker colors draw in more sunlight and heat up more as a result. It's why we wear light colors in the summer to keep cool.

Some numbers: If you have temperatures between 40 and 45 degrees, a snow pile will melt by about a half inch per day. But packed snow with layers of ice within might melt more slowly.

If temperatures get between 50 and 55 degrees, especially with the sun, piles can melt by 2-4 inches per day.

And some people are wondering, does rain melt snow? It does, by working its way into the piles, but imagine pouring water on a giant ice cube and trying to melt it. That's going to take a while.  

Kate estimates it could take close to a month for the largest snow piles to fully melt — and that's if we don't add any more snow on top of them!