SnowLoadCheck

Morehouse Parish, LA Roof Snow Load - 5 psf

Morehouse Parish, LA roof snow load, translated

Light
5 psf

A typical heated home in Morehouse Parish is designed to carry 5 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Morehouse Parish 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. A modest addition to standard roof loading. Ordinary residential construction handles this without extra bracing.

Morehouse Parish at a glance

Where Morehouse Parish ranks

#13 of 64 Louisiana counties by design load, top 82% of 2,758 nationally - that's Morehouse Parish's spot. Louisiana counties average 2.4 psf; Morehouse Parish runs 2.6 psf higher than that.

FIPS 22067, population 23,787, centered near 32.82°N 91.8004°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.

Morehouse Parish: average annual snowfall

Morehouse Parish sees about 0.1 in. of snow most winters, per the OAK RIDGE, LA US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.

Read this before you use Morehouse Parish'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.