Cowlitz County, WA Roof Snow Load - Case Study Area
Cowlitz County, WA: no map figure, on purpose
Cowlitz County sits in the mountain-west terrain where ASCE 7-22 §7.2 itself declines to give a contour figure - elevation changes too fast over short distances there for one number per county to mean anything. The code requires a site-specific study for a building here, not a look-up.
Cowlitz County, FIPS 53015, is home to 113,982 people - one of 386 US counties ASCE 7 itself routes around a map figure for.
Cowlitz County in numbers
- Population113,982
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal3 in.
- FIPS53015
How much it actually snows in Cowlitz County
Most winters bring Cowlitz County roughly 3 in. of snow - NOAA's normal at MERWIN DAM, WA US, 17.6 mi off. (fresh vs. packed vs. ice explains why.)
Read this before you rely on it
Cowlitz County's number above is ASCE 7-22's default case, not a custom calculation: ordinary residential occupancy, heated, sited on ground that's neither fully sheltered nor fully exposed. Any one of those changing - pitch, exposure, heating, occupancy - moves the real figure.
Nothing here substitutes for an address-level number. Get one free, in about a minute, from the ASCE 7 Hazard Tool using your own coordinates rather than Cowlitz County's county-wide figure. (How this figure is calculated.)