SnowLoadCheck

Montgomery County, MO Roof Snow Load - 20 psf

Montgomery County, MO roof snow load, translated

Moderate
20 psf

A typical heated home in Montgomery County is designed to carry 20 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. §7.3.4's low-slope minimum of 20 psf is what actually governs on a flat or low-pitch roof here - higher than the 14 psf the base ground-load formula gives.

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.

Montgomery County at a glance

Where Montgomery County ranks

#57 of 115 Missouri counties by design load, top 39% of 2,758 nationally - that's Montgomery County's spot. That's 1.4 psf above Missouri's own county-average design load of 18.6 psf.

FIPS 29139, population 11,511, centered near 38.9352°N 91.4654°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.

Montgomery County: average annual snowfall

Montgomery County sees about 18.9 in. of snow most winters, per the FULTON, MO US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. 26.3 mi is a real gap between Montgomery County and its nearest reporting station, so local snowfall can diverge from this figure, especially near elevation changes. See the density guide.

Read this before you use Montgomery 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.)