About Nivometra

Our founder has spent more than ten years designing building structures for the American market. The ground snow load is one of the first numbers a roof design needs, and in mountain areas the national map often can’t give it: it says “CS”, case study required, or gives a value that doesn’t fit the site.

A case study done by hand takes hours of gathering station records and fitting them to elevation. Looking for a simple tool to do it, our founder found only options that were too complicated or too expensive for a single site. Nivometra was built to fill that gap: a clear workflow, a fixed price, and a report that shows its work.

Nivometra runs the federal reference method, ERDC/CRREL SR-20-1, as software. You pin a site, see the nearby stations and which ones the method keeps, adjust the selection if your judgment differs, and preview the whole analysis for free. When it looks right, a documented report costs $29: the estimated 50-year ground snow load, the site inputs, every station considered, and the elevation fits behind the result. See a full sample report, or read what a ground snow load case study is.

• Weather stations: the station database published with SR-20-1 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ cold regions laboratory (ERDC/CRREL), with each station’s location, elevation, record length, and 50-year ground snow load.
• Site elevation: the U.S. Geological Survey’s elevation service, for the exact point you pin.
• The method: the SR-20-1 rules for selecting stations, relating snow load to elevation, and reading the value at the site. Every choice is recorded in the report.

• We are not an engineering firm. A report is software-generated reference data, not a stamped or sealed engineering document. The project’s engineer or architect decides how to use it, and the building official approves it.
• We don’t produce ASCE 7-22 values. The report gives a 50-year value, the basis of ASCE 7-16 and earlier codes. Under ASCE 7-22 it is reference information only.
• We don’t sell reports everywhere. Reports can’t be purchased in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Washington, whose building codes set ground snow loads from their own state sources.

Questions about a report, the method, or anything else: write to us. A real person answers, usually within one to two business days.