Montgomery County, TX Roof Snow Load - 5 psf
Montgomery County, TX roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Montgomery County is designed to carry 5 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Montgomery County are actually governed by ASCE 7's §7.3.4 minimum of 5 psf, not the 3.5 psf the ground-load formula alone would produce.
On a roof that means 11 in. of fresh snow, 4 in. once it packs down, or 1 in. of solid ice - three very different piles for the same load. This is a modest add-on to standard roof loading - ordinary residential construction carries it without extra bracing.
Montgomery County, TX: quick facts
- Design roof snow load5 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map5 psf
- National rank#2,078 of 2,758
- Texas rank#46 of 254
- Population749,613
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal0 in.
- FIPS48339
Where Montgomery County ranks
#46 of 254 Texas counties by design load, top 75% of 2,758 nationally - that's Montgomery County's spot. That's 0.4 psf below Texas's own county-average design load of 5.4 psf.
FIPS 48339, population 749,613, centered near 30.2988°N 95.5029°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 5 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 5 psf design figure above.
Montgomery County: average annual snowfall
Montgomery County sees about 0 in. of snow most winters, per the MONTGOMERY, TX US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. 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.)