Hawaii Ground Snow Load: Who Sets It

Hawaii sets no ground snow load at state level, so every figure comes from a county or city building department. The body to ask is the county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauai. 19 states work this way, which is why a search for one Hawaii figure comes back with several different answers from several different pages, all of them correct for the place they were written for. Hawaii publishes ground snow loads through the county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauai, and the jurisdictions reached for this had put none into a public document at the time they were read.

The county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauai: the one county code that could be read prints the heading and leaves the figure out. In its own words: “Table R301.2(1) of the International Residential Code is amended by amending Table R301.2(1) to read as follows: TABLE R301.2(1) CLIMATIC AND GEOGRAPHIC DESIGN CRITERIA GROUND SNOW LOAD WIND SPEED (mph) d SEISMIC DESIGN CATEGORY f SUBJECT TO DAMAGE FROM WINTER DESIGN TEMP e ICE BARRIER UNDER- LAYMENT REQUIRED h FLOOD HAZARDS g AIR FREEZING INDEX i MEAN ANNUAL TEMP j Weathering a Frost line depth b Termite c”

State Building Code Council, Department of Accounting and General Services adopts Hawaii State Residential Code (2018 International Residential Code with Amendments). Hawaii adopted it as written. The adopting rule reads: “The attached document is the Hawaii State Residential Code as adopted on November 17, 2020 by the State Building Code Council in accordance with HRS 107-24.”

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 county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauai works in loads for that reason, and so does every figure set out below.

A Hawaii figure for an address the documents below do not cover comes from the county building department: the City and County of Honolulu, the County of Hawaii, the County of Maui and the County of Kauai. The document behind it is State Residential Code Adoption, Adopting the 2018 International Residential Code with Amendments, published by State of Hawaii, Department of Accounting and General Services, State Building Code Council, read on September 23, 2026. It establishes the point this way: “No later than November 17, 2022, each county in the State of Hawaii must amend and adopt the attached code in accordance with HRS 107-28(a).”

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.