Snow Load Design

The entire Town of Truckee is declared a snow area.

Town of Truckee snow load requirements are based on the Report of Snow Load Study of Truckee Quadrangle Portions of Nevada County, CA" (PDF) by John Webster Brown (June 1973), in accordance with CBC Section 1608.2. A copy of the report is on file with the Building Department.

All structures are required to have engineered plans; therefore, building code provisions for conventional construction do not apply. Snow load design must comply with Town of Truckee Municipal Code Sections 15.03.110 and 15.03.120, which modify the standard requirements of CBC Chapter 16. 

Effective January 1, 2026, the ASCE 7-22 design snow hazard tool can be used, taking in consideration below:

Note regarding use of older snow studies:

If an attempt is made to justify the use of historic snow load tables after a rejection of the ASCE 7-22 data, the authors recommend the following procedure at a minimum:

1. Convert the existing ASD ground snow loads (pg) to an LRFD value, as the LRFD values are the basis for all of the updated load combinations in ASCE 7-22. The author recommends a load factor of 1.6 to align with the methodology of the previous code edition.
2. Account for Risk Category, as the Snow Importance Factor (Is) is no longer a part of ASCE-7. There are now separate ground snow load maps for each risk category. Table 1.5-2 of ASCE 7-16 was the source of these importance factors in the previous code edition.

Please note: To find the ground snow load for a parcel, enter the street address in the search bar below or zoom in and click on a parcel.

Open the Truckee Snow Load Map in a separate window for more details.