Northwest Arctic Borough, AK Snow Load: Case Study Area
Why doesn't Northwest Arctic Borough have a snow load number?
ASCE 7's own snow load map has no single figure for Northwest Arctic Borough: the terrain is complex enough that the code (§7.2) requires an elevation-specific study rather than a county-wide value. That is the map being accurate, not a data gap.
FIPS 02188, population 7,134. 386 US counties get this same case-study treatment; Northwest Arctic Borough is one of them.
Northwest Arctic Borough in numbers
- Population7,134
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal64.2 in.
- FIPS02188
Northwest Arctic Borough: average annual snowfall
Northwest Arctic Borough sees about 64.2 in. of snow most winters, per the KOTZEBUE RALPH WEIN AP, AK US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. 71.3 mi is a real gap between Northwest Arctic Borough 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 Northwest Arctic Borough'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.)