Bourbon County, KS Roof Snow Load - 20 psf
Bourbon County, KS roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Bourbon 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 14 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.
Bourbon County in numbers
- Design roof snow load20 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map20 psf
- National rank#1,039 of 2,758
- Kansas rank#21 of 105
- Population14,424
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal8.4 in.
- FIPS20011
Where Bourbon County ranks
#21 of 105 Kansas counties by design load, top 38% of 2,758 nationally - that's Bourbon County's spot. 18.2 psf is Kansas's typical county figure - Bourbon County beats it by 1.8 psf.
FIPS 20011, population 14,424, centered near 37.8561°N 94.8509°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 20 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 20 psf design figure above.
Bourbon County: average annual snowfall
Bourbon County sees about 8.4 in. of snow most winters, per the FT SCOTT, KS US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Bourbon 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.)