Georgia

Statewide summary — confirm with your building department before designing

Snow load audit, August 2026. No statewide ground snow load could be confirmed for Georgia and both bounds are left NULL. Georgia adopts the 2024 IRC and 2024 IBC with Georgia amendments, effective January 1, 2026, and the state fills in no snow number. The DCA amendment packet to the 2024 IRC, 43 pages with a complete text layer, was read in full: it amends 47 items running from the preface through Appendix BB, including R301.1.1 and R403.1.6, but it does not amend R301.2 or Table R301.2, and the word snow does not occur anywhere in it. The DCA amendment packet to the 2024 IBC, 75 pages, likewise contains no occurrence of the word snow, so Section 1608 stands unamended. Table R301.2 therefore reaches Georgia in the model code's own form, as a table the local building official is directed to complete for the jurisdiction, and no Georgia figure, map, appendix or DCA bulletin supplies a value in its place. What was searched for and not found: a Georgia amendment to R301.2 or Table R301.2 in the 2024 IRC and 2024 IBC packets and in the older 2012 edition IRC amendments, where the only snow references are rafter and ceiling span tables carried over from the model code; a DCA published climatic and geographic design criteria table or county schedule; and a state snow map on dca.georgia.gov or gema.georgia.gov. The stored ground snow load of 5 psf is a representative piedmont figure, not a state published number, and it bounds nothing: the north Georgia mountains are not covered by it and no Georgia authority assigns them a value. Seismic design category corrected from B to C because the USGS ASCE 7-16 design maps web service, at Site Class D and Risk Category II, returns short period design accelerations of 0.478 g at Dalton, 0.354 g at Blairsville and 0.320 g at Clayton; 0.478 g and 0.354 g both fall in category C under the IRC single parameter table, and all three sites are C under the full ASCE 7-16 two parameter method, so northwest and north Georgia are C by either route and a stored B understated the governing statewide case. The two methods do disagree at Atlanta and both readings are recorded here: a short period design acceleration of 0.195 g places Atlanta in B under the IRC single parameter table, while its one second design acceleration of 0.136 g places it in C under ASCE 7-16. Both figures come from the same USGS service. C is the value stored because it is the governing statewide category, because north Georgia reaches it under both methods, and because it matches the method the IBC uses. Central and south Georgia genuinely are lower, so treat C as the governing case rather than a uniform truth and confirm the lot with the local building official. Wind speed 115 mph and frost depth 12 inches were left unchanged; the coastal wind caveat in the earlier note still applies. No value on this row was changed by this audit, but the wind speed reflects inland Georgia only. The 115 mph figure is an ASCE 7 ultimate design wind speed for Risk Category II. The six counties that touch the coast, Chatham, Bryan, Liberty, McIntosh, Glynn and Camden, are treated by the State of Georgia as a separate and more demanding wind zone and carry higher mapped design speeds together with windborne debris protection requirements; a Savannah or Brunswick project must use the coastal value. Seismic design category B is well supported: Atlanta, Savannah and Augusta compute to B for Site Class D and Risk Category II, Columbus computes to A, and the far north Georgia mountains reach C. Termite risk of very heavy is correct and Georgia is in the top band of the IRC termite map. Ground snow load of 5 psf and frost depth of 12 inches describe the piedmont and coastal plain and understate the north Georgia mountains. Winter design temperature of 15 F is conservative for Atlanta and warm for the mountains.