Every figure, adopting rule and case study rule was read from the publishing body’s own document on September 23, 2026 and is linked beside the line it supports. Codes are adopted on a cycle of a few years and a county can amend one in between, so the document linked beside a figure is what governs on the day.

Ground Snow Load by State: Who Publishes the Number

Q: Which states publish their own snow load map or table?

14: Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin. Between them they carry the great majority of the 235 published figures collected here, and each figure below is linked to the document and the row it was printed in.

Q: How many inches of snow does a ground snow load work out to?

The two are joined only by density, and density changes with the storm: wet March snow and dry January snow of the same depth are very different weights on the same roof. That is why the published documents give a load per unit area and leave the depth out of it, and why every figure here is reproduced in the unit its own document printed.

Q: Is the ground snow load the same as the roof snow load?

No. The ground snow load is what the code keys to a place. The roof load is what an engineer derives from it for one building, taking the shape of the roof, the exposure, what is upwind of it, whether the building is heated, and its risk category. One state publishes a roof figure on its own map rather than a ground one, and its pages here say so in the state’s own wording.

14

States publishing a figure of their own

28% of the fifty

19

That leave it to a building department

the commonest arrangement in the country

235

Published figures read

across 33 states

16

States with case study terrain

where the document declines to give one

The finding

In thirty six states there is no state ground snow load

A ground snow load is the weight of snow a building code assumes will sit on the ground at a given place, in pounds per square foot. It is the starting figure a structural engineer works from, and the question people arrive with is almost always the same one: what is it here. The answer depends far less on how much snow falls than on which of three arrangements the state happens to use.

14 states publish something of their own that a reader can look a place up in: a map, a table, or a study the building code names. 17 adopt the national code and write no snow amendment, so the governing figure sits in a standard rather than on any state page. The remaining 19 set nothing at state level at all, and every figure in those states belongs to a county or a city building department.

That last group is why one state produces three different answers on three different websites, all of them correct for the place they were written for. The band below is the split, and the table under it names which states sit where.

14 of 50The state publishes its own
17 of 50The adopted code carries it
19 of 50The building department decides

Fifty states, read September 23, 2026.
Where the figure comes from	States	Share	Which
Each building departmentEvery figure comes from a county or a city	19	38%	Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming
The adopted codeNo state snow amendment, so the code governs	17	34%	Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas
The state publishes a tableA state table, usually county by county	9	18%	Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Utah
The state drew a mapA state map with towns or bands on it	3	6%	North Carolina, Vermont, Wisconsin
A study the state adoptedA commissioned study the building code names	2	4%	Montana, New Hampshire

The front of a wide stone and brick county court house during a snow shower, the words PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY COURT HOUSE carved across the facade above the glass entrance doors, and a bronze group of running horses on a plinth in the foreground under fresh snow — Fourteen states publish a map, a table or a study of their own that a reader can look a place up in. Seventeen adopt the national code and write no snow amendment, so the governing figure is the standard’s rather than the state’s. The remaining nineteen set nothing at all, and there the number lives with a county or a city: the office that issues the permit is the office that holds it. “PG courthouse winter”, Sallicio, Public Domain

The fourteen with a document of their own

Where a reader can look it up in one step

Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. They have less in common than the snowfall map would suggest. Some of the snowiest states in the country are not on this list, and some of the states on it publish a single figure that covers everywhere.

What these fourteen share is administrative rather than meteorological: at some point a code council decided that the national table was too coarse for the terrain it was being applied to, and commissioned or drew something keyed more finely. The document is linked on every one of those state pages, because the document is the thing worth having.

Ordered by how few steps stand between a reader and a figure keyed to their own town.
State	Who publishes the figure	Keyed to	Figures read
Vermont	The state drew a map	By region or zone	14
North Carolina	The state drew a map	By elevation	3
Wisconsin	The state drew a map	By region or zone
Connecticut	The state publishes a table	County by county	12
Massachusetts	The state publishes a table	County by county	12
Michigan	The state publishes a table	County by county	12
Rhode Island	The state publishes a table	County by county	12
Utah	The state publishes a table	By elevation	12
Maryland	The state publishes a table	County by county	10
Indiana	The state publishes a table	County by county	9
Minnesota	The state publishes a table	County by county	8
New Jersey	The state publishes a table	County by county	6
Montana	A study the state adopted	By elevation	12
New Hampshire	A study the state adopted	By elevation	12
Texas	The adopted code	By region or zone	6
Alaska	The adopted code	By region or zone	4
New York	The adopted code	By elevation	4
Maine	The adopted code	County by county	3
Ohio	The adopted code	County by county	3
Arkansas	The adopted code	By region or zone	2
Louisiana	The adopted code	County by county	1
Alabama	The adopted code	One figure statewide
Florida	The adopted code	One figure statewide
Georgia	The adopted code	County by county
Iowa	The adopted code	Not stated
Kentucky	The adopted code	One figure statewide
Nebraska	The adopted code	Not stated
North Dakota	The adopted code	Not stated
Oregon	The adopted code	By elevation
South Carolina	The adopted code	County by county
Tennessee	The adopted code	County by county
California	Each building department	By elevation	12
Washington	Each building department	By elevation	12
Arizona	Each building department	By elevation	11
Nevada	Each building department	By elevation	9
Delaware	Each building department	County by county	7
Idaho	Each building department	By elevation	6
Oklahoma	Each building department	By region or zone	6
Virginia	Each building department	County by county	4
Wyoming	Each building department	By region or zone	4
Pennsylvania	Each building department	County by county	3
Colorado	Each building department	By elevation	2
Kansas	Each building department	County by county	1
South Dakota	Each building department	County by county	1
Hawaii	Each building department	Not stated
Illinois	Each building department	Not stated
Mississippi	Each building department	County by county
Missouri	Each building department	Not stated
New Mexico	Each building department	By elevation
West Virginia	Each building department	County by county

Why one state figure is usually the wrong question

The distance inside a single state

Nevada publishes figures from 20 psf at Churchill County to 600 at Lake Tahoe Basin, Risk Category II. Both are Nevada figures, both are current, and both were printed by the same body. The difference between them is elevation, which is what 13 states key their figures to. A county line, which is what 21 states key theirs to, moves the answer far less.

This is the single most misleading thing about the way the subject is usually written up. A page offering one number per state has taken one row out of a table with several dozen rows in it, and in a mountain state the row it took can be an order of magnitude away from the row that applies to the reader. Every figure below carries the place it belongs to and the band or county its own document keyed it to.

A long single storey log building with a steep shingle roof standing among tall snow covered firs, deep snow lying along the roof and curling over the porch edge in a thick lip hung with icicles, drifts banked to the window sills, and a small carved sign reading COMMUNITY BUILDING above the doors — At the top of the range a place stops having one number. The Lake Tahoe Basin in Nevada publishes 600 pounds per square foot for one elevation band, and Mt. Baker Ski Area in Washington 588, both read off a local table rather than a state one. Where the loads get large the jurisdiction usually splits its map by height above sea level, so two addresses in the same county are given different figures. “Longmire Community Building in winter, 2015. (00ba31a8-5cb1-42c5-adfa-0c988527a0e3)”, NPS Photo, Public Domain

The 29 states with more than one published figure, widest apart first.
State	Lowest printed	Highest printed	Distance between them
Nevada	20 psfChurchill County	600Lake Tahoe Basin, Risk Category II	580
Washington	15 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)Bellingham	588 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)Mt. Baker Ski Area	573
California	29 psfNevada County	542 psfNevada County	513
Montana	19.2 psfDillon AP	410.7 psfNorth Fork Jocko	391.5
Michigan	20WAYNE	100KEWEENAW: TOWNSHIP OF EAGLE HARBOR, TOWNSHIP OF GRANT, TOWNSHIP OF HOUGHTON	80
Arizona	0City of Bullhead City	75Coconino County	75
New Hampshire	50 lb/ft2Portsmouth	120 lb/ft2Beans Purchase	70
Idaho	15 psfTwin Falls	70 lbs per sq ftHayden, North of Miles Avenue	55
Utah	21 lb/ft2St. George	67 lb/ft2Monticello	46
Alaska	60 pounds per square footCity of Fairbanks	100 lbs. per square footCordova	40
Massachusetts	25 psfProvincetown	60 psfAdams	35
New York	25 psfNew York City	60, 64, 66 or 68Town Of Ephratah, Fulton County, New York	35
Vermont	40 lbs.Williston	70 lbs.Killington	30
Maryland	20 pounds per square footWorcester County	40 psfCarroll County	20

Every figure read, largest first

The 235 published figures

Each of these was printed by a public body in a document linked beside it, and each appears here in the unit and the wording that document used. The spellings differ because the documents differ: psf, P.S.F., lbs, lbs per sq ft, and in a few county tables a bare number whose unit is given in a footnote. Normalising them would be tidier and would put a figure on the page that nobody published.

Each one governs the place its own document named and no further: a county figure covers that county, an elevation band holds inside that band, and a place its document passed over stands with none until the document is amended.

A residential street after a heavy snowfall seen at eye level from the middle of the road, parked cars buried to their windows along both kerbs, two sets of tyre tracks running away between them, and bare trees white to the tips arching over the street — The published figures reach a long way south of the places snow is famous for. Bullhead City in Arizona and Jefferson Parish in Louisiana both print zero. Midland, Texas prints three and a half pounds per square foot. Every one of those was set by a city or a parish rather than by the state, which is why one state can return three different answers from three different pages. “Snowy Residential Street 1”, Amaury Laporte, CC BY 2.0

The forty largest of 235 figures. The rest are on the state pages.
Figure, as printed	Place	State	Keyed to	Document
600	Lake Tahoe Basin, Risk Category II10000	Nevada	Elevation band	Source
588 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)	Mt. Baker Ski Area4200 (Approx. Average Elevation, feet)	Washington	Town or city	Source
542 psf	Nevada County7501-8000 ft.	California	Elevation band	Source
510	Washoe County, west of US 395, Risk Category II10000	Nevada	Elevation band	Source
410.7 psf	North Fork Jocko6330 ft	Montana	Zone	Source
400	Town of Truckee7501-8000	California	Elevation band	Source
321.3 psf	Badger Pass6900 ft	Montana	Zone	Source
315	Lake Tahoe Basin, Risk Category II6000	Nevada	Elevation band	Source
300 pounds	Town of Mammoth Lakeselevations greater than 8,500 feet	California	Elevation band	Source
285 psf	Virginia Lakes9,600 ft.	California	Zone	Source
260	Town of Truckee5500	California	Elevation band	Source
203	Washoe County, east of US 395, Risk Category II10000	Nevada	Elevation band	Source
203	Washoe County, west of US 395, Risk Category II6000	Nevada	Elevation band	Source
155 psf	June Lake7,600 ft.	California	Zone	Source
140 lbs.	Modoc County	California	County	Source
135.0 psf	West Yellowstone6659 ft	Montana	Town or city	Source
129 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)	Newhalem510 (Approx. Average Elevation, feet)	Washington	Town or city	Source
120 lb/ft2	Beans Purchase2000 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
115 lb/ft2	Jackson1800 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
105.2 psf	Red Lodge 2 N5500 ft	Montana	Town or city	Source
100 lbs. per square foot	Cordova	Alaska	Town or city	Source
100 pounds per square foot	Mammoth Yosemite Airport	California	Zone	Source
100	KEWEENAW: TOWNSHIP OF EAGLE HARBOR, TOWNSHIP OF GRANT, TOWNSHIP OF HOUGHTON	Michigan	Town or city	Source
100 lb/ft2	Berlin1600 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
100 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)	Diablo910 (Approx. Average Elevation, feet)	Washington	Town or city	Source
95.7 psf	Bozeman 12 NE5950 ft	Montana	Town or city	Source
95 pounds per square foot	Petersburg	Alaska	Town or city	Source
90	KEWEENAW	Michigan	County	Source
80 lb/sqft	Hermon	Maine	Town or city	Source
80	Lewiston	Maine	Town or city	Source
80	HOUGHTON	Michigan	County	Source
80 lb/ft2	Laconia900 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
80 lb/ft2	Lebanon1200 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
77 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)	Maple Falls643 (Approx. Average Elevation, feet)	Washington	Town or city	Source
75	Coconino County7500 to 8000	Arizona	Elevation band	Source
75	Jacob Lake7920	Arizona	Zone	Source
75 lb/ft2	Hanover1300 ft	New Hampshire	Town or city	Source
74 (Revised Ground Snow Load, psf)	Glacier900 (Approx. Average Elevation, feet)	Washington	Town or city	Source
71 psf	Nevada County0-5000 ft.	California	Elevation band	Source
70 PSF	Soldotna	Alaska	Town or city	Source

Why a lookup comes back empty

Case study areas, in 16 states

In mountainous terrain the national mapping is too coarse to be keyed to a point, and the published documents say so themselves. Rather than print a figure they cannot stand behind, they mark the area as requiring a case study and send the designer to the local building department, which is the body with the authority to set one.

This is the commonest reason a reader searching for their own address finds nothing, and it is almost never explained at the point where the search fails. The rules are quoted below in the words the documents used.

Arizona
Coconino County prints no figure above 8,000 feet and points to its own commissioned study for the rest, so a reader on the high ground has to go to the county building division rather than to a table.
Ground Snow Load – Coconino County Ground Snow Loads are established through a Case Study (CS) and references the "Ground Snow Load Case Study for Coconino County". ... Coconino County Above 8000 Design according to accepted engineering practice
The rule as published
California
Some California counties and cities print no number at all and send the reader to the building official, to a county map or to a national hazard tool for the value at a particular address.
The minimum ground snow load used to determine the design loads for buildings and other structures shall be specified by the El Dorado County Building Official. The Building Safety Division shall establish and enforce the snow load design criteria of El Dorado County.
The rule as published
Idaho
Kootenai County prints its ground snow load as Varies and sends the reader to a 1986 University of Idaho publication and its map, so a site specific figure has to come from the building department.
1608.2: Ground Snow Loads. Delete entire section and replace with the following: The ground snow loads shall be determined using factors and methodology contained in the publication entitled Ground and Roof Snow Loads for Idaho and the accompanying map entitled Normalized Ground Snow Loads For Idaho by the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, 1986.
The rule as published
Maine
Large parts of Maine come back from the national tool as a case study area, and the State Fire Marshal's guidance prints the exact procedure a designer follows when that happens.
If “Case Study Required” is displayed, click the return button in the upper right corner and follow the below instructions. 1) Select “ASCE/SEI 7-22” under Standard Version 2) Select the appropriate Risk Category 3) Check “Snow” for Load Type 4) Click “View Results” 5) The Snow Load given should be reduced by the following equation to bring it to ASCE/SEI 7-16 loads: SL22 * 0.70 = SL16 (Value not less than100 lb/ft2)
The rule as published
Montana
A site that is not near a listed station, or is at a different elevation from one, has no tabled value and the reader has to ask the State Building Codes Bureau or the local building official for it.
For areas not listed, not of the same elevation as listed, or locations having some other variable, ground snow loads should be determined by calling the State Building Codes Bureau at (406) 841-2056.
The rule as published
Nevada
The table prints a value only every 500 feet of elevation and its own note leaves anything between two rows to the designer, so a site part way up has no row to read, and Douglas County publishes no figure of its own at all.
Intermediate values may be determined by interpolation
The rule as published
New Hampshire
The study was written because the national map gives New Hampshire no usable statewide numbers, so a case study was run for every one of the 259 towns; above 2,500 feet the table stops and the document says a site specific case study is still required.
Do not use this information above 2500 ft: Conduct a site-specific snow load case study.
The rule as published
New Jersey
New Jersey's rule is written around the case study answer: where the national hazard website returns case study rather than a number, the state's own bulletin names six northern counties and gives each one a figure, and says every other county will return a number.
If the website returns with “case study (CS),” one may use withdrawn Bulletin 94-8 values for the following counties: Sussex, 50 psf; Warren, 35 psf; Hunterdon, 35psf; Passaic, 40 psf; Morris, 35 psf; Somerset, 30 psf. All other counties should generate a load number.
The rule as published

The nineteen with nothing at state level

When the figure comes from a counter

In these states the building department with jurisdiction over the parcel holds the figure, and it holds it in whatever form suits it: a county code amendment, an elevation table on a handout, a line in an ordinance, or a value a plans examiner looks up against the address. The agency named beside each state below is the one that decides, and the rule linked beside it is what puts the decision there.

Several of these states carry more published figures than states with a statewide document do, because a county writing for its own terrain tends to key more finely than a state writing for everybody.

The states where no ground snow load is set at state level.
State	Who sets the figure	Keyed to	Figures read
California	The city or county building department, with any change filed with the California Building Standards Commissioneach city and county sets its own figure by amending the state code on a local finding	By elevation	12
Washington	the county or city building department (for example Whatcom County Planning and Development Services, Chelan County Community Development, King County Department of Local Services)the county looks the value up against the parcel	By elevation	12
Arizona	The county board of supervisors for unincorporated land, and the city or town for land inside itArizona has no statewide building code for private construction, so each county and municipality adopts and fills in its own	By elevation	11
Nevada	the city or county building departmentNevada law leaves adoption to each city and county	By elevation	9
Delaware	the county or municipal building department where the work isDelaware has no statewide building code, so the county or the town writes the number into its own adopted code	County by county	7
Idaho	the city or county building departmenteach jurisdiction sets and publishes its own figure	By elevation	6
Oklahoma	the city or county building department, as the authority having jurisdiction under the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code Commission's rulesthe statewide rule leaves the snow cell empty and names the local jurisdiction as the one who fills it	By region or zone	6
Virginia	the building official of the county, city or town where the work isthe state code hands the climatic and geographic design criteria to the locality, and each building department publishes its own figure	County by county	4
Wyoming	the city or county building departmenteach jurisdiction adopts its own code and publishes its own figure	By region or zone	4
Pennsylvania	the building code official of the municipality where the work isthe number is written into the code's design criteria table locally, most often by municipal ordinance	County by county	3
Colorado	the city, county or regional building departmentColorado adopts no building code statewide, so each jurisdiction adopts its own and publishes its own figure	By elevation	2
Kansas	the county or the city, under its own home rule authoritya county's regulations reach only its unincorporated areas, and inside a city that city's own adopted code controls	County by county	1
South Dakota	the county or city building departmentthe code a South Dakota project is built to is the one that county or city adopted, and its own handbook is where the snow figure is printed	County by county	1
Hawaii	the county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauaithe one county code that could be read prints the heading and leaves the figure out	Not stated
Illinois	your city, village, or county code officialthe state board that oversees construction codes publishes no snow load figures and says the code official where the work is has the answer	Not stated
Mississippi	the county board of supervisors or the municipal governing authority, and the Mississippi Building Codes Council for the codes they may choose fromeach county and municipality picks its edition, and some opted out of having a code at all	County by county
Missouri	the county commission, or the incorporated city, town or village, where the work isthe statute lets each community adopt a construction code by reference, and the state adopts none for site built houses	Not stated
New Mexico	the city or county building departmentthe state amends neither code's snow provisions, so the figure comes from the local jurisdiction	By elevation
West Virginia	the local jurisdiction that adopted the State Building Code, and the West Virginia State Fire Commission for the rule itselfthe county or city building department that adopted the code fills in the blanks the code leaves to the jurisdiction	County by county

What the state adopted, and whether it changed it

The codes behind the figures

Every figure on these pages sits inside an adopted building code, and 22 states amended the code they adopted rather than taking it as written. An amendment is where a state snow load table usually lives, so the amended column is a reasonable first place to look when a state appears to have no document of its own.

Editions matter here more than they look as though they should. Codes are adopted on a cycle of a few years, a county can amend one in between, and the national standard changed how it presents ground snow load between recent editions. The adopting rule linked beside each state is what governs on the day.

Amended codes first. The rest are on the state pages.
State	Code adopted	Edition	Amended by the state	Adopting rule
North Carolina	North Carolina State Building Code: Building Code	2018	Yes	The rule
Minnesota	International Residential Code (IRC)	2018 edition	Yes	The rule
Kansas	Johnson County Code of Regulations for Buildings and Construction, 2018 Edition	2018 Edition, effective July 1, 2020 (2018 International Residential Code, 2018 International Building Code, 2018 International Fire Code, 2018 International Mechanical Code, 2018 International Plumbing Code)	Yes	The rule
Georgia	Georgia State Minimum Standard One and Two Family Dwelling Code (International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings with Georgia State Amendments)	2018 Edition, revised January 1, 2020	Yes	The rule
Indiana	2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4	2020 Indiana Residential Code, incorporating the 2018 International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings	Yes	The rule
New York	2020 Residential Code of New York State (2020 RCNYS), Part 1220 of Title 19 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York	2020 RCNYS	Yes	The rule
Utah	International Residential Code	2021 edition	Yes	The rule
Connecticut	2022 Connecticut State Building Code	2021 International Building Code and 2021 International Residential Code, as amended	Yes	The rule
Alabama	State Building Code (2021 International Building Code with exceptions)	2021, adopted July 1, 2022, amended March 17, 2025	Yes	The rule
South Carolina	2021 South Carolina Building Code / 2021 South Carolina Residential Code	2021, implementation date January 1, 2023	Yes	The rule
New Hampshire	International Building Code	2024	Yes	The rule
Montana	International Residential Code	2024 Edition	Yes	The rule
Oregon	Oregon Structural Specialty Code	2025	Yes	The rule
Florida	Florida Building Code	8th Edition (2023)	Yes	The rule
Vermont	International Building Code, as amended by the 2025 Vermont Fire & Building Safety Code	IBC 2021	Yes	The rule
Rhode Island	Rhode Island Building Code (RISBC-1), 510-RICR-00-00-1	International Building Code (IBC), 2021 edition	Yes	The rule
Michigan	Michigan residential code for 1- and 2-family dwellings	international residential code, 2015 edition	Yes	The rule
New Jersey	One- and two-family dwelling subcode, N.J.A.C. 5:23-3.21, adopting the 2024 International Residential Code; building subcode, N.J.A.C. 5:23-3.14, adopting the 2024 International Building Code	IRC/2024 and IBC/2024	Yes	The rule
Maine	Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (MUBEC)	MUBEC, with ASCE 7-16 for snow loads	Yes	The rule
Wisconsin	Uniform Dwelling Code, Chs. SPS 320-325 (one- and 2-family dwellings); International Building Code 2021 for commercial work, Chs. SPS 361-366	Register November 2024 No. 827 (ch. SPS 321); International Building Code - 2021 (ch. SPS 361)	Yes	The rule
Ohio	Residential Code of Ohio (one-, two- and three-family dwellings), Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 4101:8-3; Ohio Building Code, Ohio Administrative Code rule 4101:1-16-01, for all other buildings	Residential Code of Ohio effective July 1, 2019; Ohio Building Code structural rule effective March 1, 2024, adopting the International Building Code, 2021 edition	Yes	The rule
Massachusetts	Massachusetts State Building Code, 780 CMR (Tenth Edition), Massachusetts Amendments to the International Building Code 2021	Tenth Edition	Yes	The rule

Ground snow load questions

What is a ground snow load?

The weight of snow a building code assumes will sit on the ground at a given place, in pounds per square foot, and it is the input a structural engineer starts from rather than the answer about any particular roof. It is set by a public body: 14 states publish a map, table or study of their own, 17 adopt the national code without writing a snow amendment, and 19 leave every figure to a county or city building department.

Why does my state not have one number?

Because in 36 states out of 50 there is nothing at state level to have a number. 21 states key the figure to the county and 13 key it to elevation, so two houses a mile apart can take different values, and in the 19 states with no state document at all the figure comes from whichever building department has jurisdiction. Three pages giving three different answers for one state are usually all correct, each for the place it was written for.

Which states publish their own snow load map or table?

What is the highest ground snow load published in the country?

600, printed for Lake Tahoe Basin, Risk Category II in Nevada, in the band its own table labels 10000. Figures of that size come from mountain jurisdictions that had a study done, and they are keyed to elevation rather than to a town line, which is why the same county can carry a figure several times smaller a few thousand feet lower down. The widest spread inside one state is Nevada, from 20 psf to 600.

Why does a lookup tell me a case study is required?

16 states have areas where the published document expressly declines to give a figure: mountainous terrain where the national mapping is too coarse to be keyed to a point. The document sends the designer back to the local building department, which is the body with the authority to set one. The states with such an area are Arizona, California, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming.

How many inches of snow does a ground snow load work out to?

Is the ground snow load the same as the roof snow load?

How current is this?

Ground snow load in every state

Ice dams by stateWhat builds at the eaves when snow sits on a warm roof, and the conditions that put it there.Snowpack by stateWhat is actually on the ground this winter, measured daily, against the years behind it.Lake effect snow by stateThe bands that put a season of snow into three days, and the counties they land on.Frozen pipes by stateThe other thing a long cold spell does to a building, and the temperatures it starts at.

Fifty states read September 23, 2026: state code offices, building commissions, adopted standards and the county and city building departments that hold the figure where no state does. Every value, adopting rule and case study rule is linked to the document it was printed in. Codes are adopted on a cycle and a county can amend one in between, so the document linked beside a line is what governs on the day. A ground snow load is an input to a structural calculation about one building by somebody who has been to it.