Wayne County, NC Roof Snow Load - 10 psf
Wayne County, NC roof snow load, translated
A typical heated home in Wayne County is designed to carry 10 pounds per square foot of snow on its roof, per ASCE 7-22. Flat and low-pitch roofs in Wayne County are actually governed by ASCE 7's §7.3.4 minimum of 10 psf, not the 7 psf the ground-load formula alone would produce.
On a roof that means 22 in. of fresh snow, 8 in. once it packs down, or 2 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.
Wayne County at a glance
- Design roof snow load10 psf
- Ground snow load, ASCE 7 map10 psf
- National rank#1,700 of 2,758
- North Carolina rank#62 of 100
- Population120,338
- Annual snowfall, NOAA normal2 in.
- FIPS37191
Where Wayne County ranks
#62 of 100 North Carolina counties by design load, top 62% of 2,758 nationally - that's Wayne County's spot. 12.9 psf is North Carolina's typical county figure - Wayne County comes in 2.9 psf under it.
FIPS 37191, population 120,338, centered near 35.3542°N 78.0087°W. ASCE 7's underlying ground snow load here is 10 psf before the code's exposure and importance factors bring it to the 10 psf design figure above.
Wayne County: average annual snowfall
Wayne County sees about 2 in. of snow most winters, per the WARSAW 5 E, NC US station's 1991-2020 NOAA normal. See the density guide.
Read this before you use Wayne 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.)