Lincoln County, CO Roof Snow Load - 10 psf
Lincoln County, CO roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Lincoln County is designed to carry 10 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Lincoln County are actually governed by ASCE 7's §7.3.4 minimum of 10 psf, not the 7 psf the ground-load formula alone would produce.
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. A modest addition to standard roof loading. Ordinary residential construction handles this without extra bracing.
Snow on Lincoln County's roofs right now?
Lincoln County in numbers
- Design roof snow load10 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map10 psf
- National rank#2,040 of 2,758
- Colorado rank#22 of 24
- Population5,598
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal24.4 in.
- FIPS08073
Where Lincoln County ranks
#22 of 24 Colorado counties by design load, top 74% of 2,758 nationally - that's Lincoln County's spot. Colorado counties average 17.7 psf; Lincoln County runs 7.7 psf lower than that.
FIPS 08073, population 5,598, centered near 38.9937°N 103.5076°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.
Lincoln County: average annual snowfall
Lincoln County sees about 24.4 in. of snow most winters, per the HUGO 1 NW, CO US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Lincoln 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. See the methodology guide.