Tuscaloosa County, AL Roof Snow Load - 5 psf
Tuscaloosa County, AL roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Tuscaloosa County is designed to carry 5 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. The physics-based figure alone would be 3.5 psf, but ASCE 7's own low-slope minimum (§7.3.4) sets a floor of 5 psf for flat and low-pitch roofs here, which is the number that actually governs.
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. Standard residential construction handles a load this size without extra bracing; it is a modest addition on top of ordinary roof loading.
Tuscaloosa County in numbers
- Design roof snow load5 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map5 psf
- National rank#2,094 of 2,758
- Alabama rank#19 of 67
- Population241,212
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal0.3 in.
- FIPS01125
Where Tuscaloosa County ranks
#19 of 67 Alabama counties by design load, top 76% of 2,758 nationally - that's Tuscaloosa County's spot. That's 0.6 psf below Alabama's own county-average design load of 5.6 psf.
FIPS 01125, population 241,212, centered near 33.2902°N 87.5228°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.
Tuscaloosa County: average annual snowfall
Tuscaloosa County sees about 0.3 in. of snow most winters, per the HOLT L&D, AL US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Tuscaloosa 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. Details: the calculation guide.