Seward County, NE Roof Snow Load - 20 psf
Seward County, NE roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Seward County is designed to carry 20 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Seward County are actually governed by ASCE 7's §7.3.4 minimum of 20 psf, not the 17.5 psf the ground-load formula alone would produce.
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.
Seward County at a glance
- Design roof snow load20 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map25 psf
- National rank#985 of 2,758
- Nebraska rank#30 of 93
- Population17,769
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal20.5 in.
- FIPS31159
Where Seward County ranks
#30 of 93 Nebraska counties by design load, top 36% of 2,758 nationally - that's Seward County's spot. That's 0.2 psf below Nebraska's own county-average design load of 20.2 psf.
FIPS 31159, population 17,769, centered near 40.8719°N 97.1404°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 25 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 20 psf design figure above.
Seward County: average annual snowfall
Seward County sees about 20.5 in. of snow most winters, per the UTICA, NE US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Seward 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.)