Colorado Ground Snow Load: Set County by County

Each building department

Who carries the figure

Every figure comes from a county or a city

2

Published figures read

43 psf uniform to 57 psf uniform

Elevation

What the figure is keyed to

as the document keys it

September 23, 2026

Read

code adopted as written

The short answer

Colorado leaves every ground snow load to the building department

Colorado sets no ground snow load at state level, so every figure comes from a county or city building department. Two figures from Colorado counties and cities are set out below, each with the ordinance or code amendment it was printed in. 19 states work this way, which is why a search for one Colorado figure comes back with several different answers from several different pages, all of them correct for the place they were written for.

A Colorado figure for an address the documents below do not cover comes from the city, county or regional building department.

Each building departmentBy elevation

Jurisdictions served by Pikes Peak Regional Building Code have adopted the following codes: 2023 Pikes Peak Regional Building Code (PPRBC) 2021 International Building Code (IBC)

Basic Design Information, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

What the documents print

The 2 figures published for Colorado

two Colorado figures, running from 43 psf uniform at Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane below 7000 feet to 57 psf uniform at Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane at or above 7000 feet, every one of them quoted from the document it was printed in. Nationally 235 figures were read across 33 states.

The figure moves with elevation in Colorado, which is the hardest case for a reader: two houses a mile apart and a thousand feet apart take different numbers, and 13 states are keyed this way.

Each figure below appears in the unit and the wording its own document used, and links to the row it was printed in. A pound per square foot is a weight, and how deep a weight of snow sits depends on what that snow has been through since it fell, which is why the documents print the load and leave the depth to the engineer standing at the building.

57 psf uniform
Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane at or above 7000 feet
Elevation bandAt or above 7000'
the same sheet prints a separate flat roof snow load
the document it was printed in, read September 23, 2026
43 psf uniform
Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane below 7000 feet
Elevation bandBelow 7000'
the same sheet prints a separate flat roof snow load
the document it was printed in, read September 23, 2026

The document behind it

What Colorado publishes

Colorado does not publish a snow load document of its own, so the record below is the rule that puts the figure where it is rather than a table of figures.

Each building department

Basic Design Information

Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, Updated: 06/30/2026

Open the document, read September 23, 2026

Who decides

The office that holds the figure

The city, county or regional building department: Colorado adopts no building code statewide, so each jurisdiction adopts its own and publishes its own figure.

Whoever publishes the number, the authority having jurisdiction over the parcel is the body that applies it, and it is the body a permit application goes to. Where a county has amended the state or national figure for its own terrain, the county’s figure is the one that governs there.

the city, county or regional building department

Colorado adopts no building code statewide, so each jurisdiction adopts its own and publishes its own figure

Jurisdictions served by Pikes Peak Regional Building Code have adopted the following codes:

The rule that puts it there, read September 23, 2026

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 code behind it

What Colorado adopted

Colorado has no single statewide building code record behind these figures, which is itself why they differ between jurisdictions.

Editions matter more here 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. 22 of the fifty states amended the code they adopted rather than taking it as written, and a state snow load table, where one exists, usually lives in that amendment.

How Colorado compares

The same question in the other forty nine

14 states publish a ground snow load of their own, 17 adopt the national code without a snow amendment, and 19 leave every figure to a county or a city. 235 published figures were read across 33 states, and 16 states mark terrain their own document declines to give a figure for.

The table is ordered by how few steps stand between a reader and a figure keyed to their own town, which is a different ranking from how much snow a state gets.

Fifty states, read September 23, 2026.
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

Colorado ground snow load questions

What is the ground snow load in Colorado?

Colorado sets no ground snow load at state level, so every figure comes from a county or city building department. Two figures from Colorado counties and cities are set out below, each with the ordinance or code amendment it was printed in. 19 states work this way, which is why a search for one Colorado figure comes back with several different answers from several different pages, all of them correct for the place they were written for. two Colorado figures, running from 43 psf uniform at Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane below 7000 feet to 57 psf uniform at Jurisdictions served by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Code, grade plane at or above 7000 feet, every one of them quoted from the document it was printed in. Nationally 235 figures were read across 33 states.

Who decides the ground snow load in Colorado?

Does the Colorado ground snow load change across the state?

How many inches of snow is a ground snow load in Colorado?

A ground snow load is a weight per unit area and not a depth, and the two are joined only by the density of the snow on the day, which is why the published documents give the load and leave the depth out. Wet spring snow and dry January snow of the same depth are different weights on the same roof. The city, county or regional building department works in loads for that reason, and so does every figure set out below.

Where does the Colorado figure come from?

A Colorado figure for an address the documents below do not cover comes from the city, county or regional building department. The document behind it is Basic Design Information, published by Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, read on September 23, 2026. It establishes the point this way: “Jurisdictions served by Pikes Peak Regional Building Code have adopted the following codes: 2023 Pikes Peak Regional Building Code (PPRBC) 2021 International Building Code (IBC)”

Which states publish a ground snow load map of their own?

14 of 50: Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin. The other 36 split into 17 that adopt the national code without a snow amendment and 19 that leave every figure to a county or city building department. That is the single most useful fact about this subject and no one state's own website carries it.

Ground snow load in every state

Colorado ice damsWhat builds at the eaves when snow sits on a warm roof, and the conditions that put it there.Colorado snowpackWhat is actually on the ground this winter, measured daily, against the years behind it.Colorado lake effect snowThe bands that put a season of snow into three days, and the counties they land on.Colorado frozen pipesThe other thing a long cold spell does to a building, and the temperatures it starts at.

Colorado read September 23, 2026: Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, Basic Design Information, and the county and city building departments that publish a figure where the state does not. Every value, adopting rule and case study rule above links to the document it was printed in. Codes are adopted on a cycle and a jurisdiction 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.