Adams County, NE Roof Snow Load - 20 psf
Adams County, NE roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Adams County is designed to carry 20 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. The physics-based figure alone would be 17.5 psf, but ASCE 7's own low-slope minimum (§7.3.4) sets a floor of 20 psf for flat and low-pitch roofs here, which is the number that actually governs.
On a roof that means 44 in. of fresh snow, 16 in. once it packs down, or 4 in. of solid ice - three very different piles for the same load. Modern-code homes carry a load like this without issue; an older addition, a carport, or any flat-roofed section is where it is worth checking first.
Adams County in numbers
- Design roof snow load20 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map25 psf
- National rank#854 of 2,758
- Nebraska rank#24 of 93
- Population31,196
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal25.3 in.
- FIPS31001
Where Adams County ranks
#24 of 93 Nebraska counties by design load, top 31% of 2,758 nationally - that's Adams County's spot. 20.2 psf is Nebraska's typical county figure - Adams County comes in 0.2 psf under it.
FIPS 31001, population 31,196, centered near 40.5206°N 98.5°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 25 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 20 psf design figure above.
Adams County: average annual snowfall
Adams County sees about 25.3 in. of snow most winters, per the BLUE HILL 4 SW, NE US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Adams County's figure
The figure above assumes the case ASCE 7-22 treats as typical: a heated, ordinary-occupancy home on a partially exposed site. Change any of those - exposure, heating, roof pitch, occupancy category - and the real design number moves.
A building permit needs the number at your exact address, not the county average - the free ASCE 7 Hazard Tool returns that from your coordinates in about a minute and produces a PDF a plan reviewer will accept. (How this figure is calculated.)