Rhode Island Ground Snow Load by County and Town

Rhode Island publishes its own table of ground snow loads, Rhode Island Snow Load, Wind Speed and Frost Depth Table (RISBC-1 § 1.4), through Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission. twelve of its published figures are set out below with the row each was read from. Only 14 states out of 50 publish anything of their own like it; the other 36 send a reader either to the national code or to a county counter. twelve Rhode Island figures, running from 25 psf at New Shoreham to 40 psf at Burrillville, every one of them quoted from the document it was printed in. Nationally 235 figures were read across 33 states.

Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission: the state committee prints one figure per municipality and the local building official applies it. In its own words: “The Rhode Island Building Code is promulgated by the Building Code Standards Committee pursuant to the authority granted in R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 23-27.3-100.1.5 and 23-27.3-109.1.”

The figure is keyed to the county in Rhode Island, as it is in 21 states, so the county line rather than the town line is what changes the answer. The published Rhode Island figures run from 25 psf to 40 psf.

Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission adopts Rhode Island Building Code (RISBC-1), 510-RICR-00-00-1 (International Building Code (IBC), 2021 edition). Rhode Island amended it rather than adopting it whole, and 22 states have done the same. The adopting rule reads: “The Building Code Standards Committee hereby adopts and incorporates as the Rhode Island Building Code the provisions of the International Building Code (IBC), 2021 edition, as published by the International Code Council, Inc. (ICC) not including any further editions or amendments thereof and only to the extent that the provisions therein are not inconsistent with R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 23-27.3 and any provisions reserved, deleted, or amended in this Regulation.”

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. Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission works in loads for that reason, and so does every figure set out below.

The Rhode Island document itself is the place to look a town up, and what it prints is applied by Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission. The document behind it is Rhode Island Snow Load, Wind Speed and Frost Depth Table (RISBC-1 § 1.4), published by Building Code Standards Committee, Rhode Island Building Code Commission, read on September 23, 2026. It establishes the point this way: “1608.2 Delete all Tables and Figures in IBC section 1608.2 "Ground Snow Loads" and substitute the Table below in § 1.4 of this Part.”

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.