Lee County, AR Roof Snow Load - 10 psf
Lee County, AR roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Lee County is designed to carry 10 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. ASCE 7's low-slope-roof minimum (§7.3.4) raises the governing figure to 10 psf - higher than the 7 psf the ground-load formula alone would give, and the code says use the larger one.
On a roof that means 22 in. of fresh snow, 8 in. once it packs down, or 2 in. of solid ice - three very different piles for the same load. Standard residential construction handles a load this size without extra bracing; it is a modest addition on top of ordinary roof loading.
Snow on Lee County's roofs right now?
Lee County in numbers
- Design roof snow load10 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map10 psf
- National rank#2,018 of 2,758
- Arkansas rank#61 of 75
- Population8,104
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal1.3 in.
- FIPS05077
Where Lee County ranks
#61 of 75 Arkansas counties by design load, top 73% of 2,758 nationally - that's Lee County's spot. That's 0.1 psf below Arkansas's own county-average design load of 10.1 psf.
FIPS 05077, population 8,104, centered near 34.7795°N 90.7797°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 10 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 10 psf design figure above.
Lee County: average annual snowfall
Lee County sees about 1.3 in. of snow most winters, per the MARIANNA 2 S, AR US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Lee 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.)