Wichita Falls is on the 2015 code and has never adopted a design wind speed at all. Anyone quoting you one here is quoting a number the city never set.
On April 10, 1979 — Terrible Tuesday — an F4 tornado a mile wide cut 12.9 miles through Wichita Falls. Forty-two people died, roughly 1,700 were injured, and the National Weather Service records 3,095 homes destroyed. It remains one of the most significant tornadoes in Texas history, and everyone here knows someone who remembers it.
We are going to resist the temptation to build this page on it. That storm predates the modern record by two decades, and when we tested whether it shows up as a rebuild cohort in the housing data the way Waco's 1953 tornado does, it does not hold up. Wichita Falls' 1970s share is 16.7% and the county's modal decade is indeed the 1970s — but census data comes in decade bins, the 1979-82 rebuild straddles two of them, and the oil boom and Sheppard Air Force Base are inseparable confounders. The combined 1970-89 share is 32.1%, barely above Dallas's 30.8%, and Dallas had no tornado. So we will tell you the history, and we will not dress a coincidence up as causation.
What is directly useful is the code position, and it is unusual. Wichita Falls is on the 2015 International Residential Code, with the 2006 energy code alongside it — two full cycles behind most of Texas and three behind Sugar Land. Nortex Regional Planning Commission publishes no amendment package, so the city writes its own, and we read them: six amended sections in the entire code, none of them in the roofing chapter.
And there is a genuine gap that affects how any honest contractor quotes here. Wichita Falls has never filled in the climate design table. There is no adopted design wind speed to cite. Dallas-Fort Worth publishes 115 mph, Abilene 105, Austin 105, Pearland 140 — Wichita Falls publishes nothing. If a bid you are holding states a Wichita Falls design wind speed, ask where the number came from, because the city has not set one. We confirm the applicable criteria with the building official rather than importing a figure from a city three hours away.
A permit is required for any tear-off. The fee sits in a separate ordinance that is not posted, so we confirm it per job rather than guessing. Work hours are settled and generous: Section 46-20(9) allows construction from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., seven days a week — one of the longest windows we work under anywhere, and useful after a storm.
The storm season runs later than the Metroplex. Wichita Falls logs 60 distinct hail days in May against 55 in April, so May is the peak. The city also carries 30 non-thunderstorm high wind events against Dallas County's seven — genuinely elevated, though well short of Lubbock's 124. Dust is not a factor here; there is one recorded dust storm in the period.
The exposure North Texas pages understate for this area is ice. Wichita Falls sits far enough north that winter storms reach it harder than they reach Dallas, and the 2021 statewide freeze is inside the modern record. The code does not require ice barrier underlayment here — and we will not sell it as a code requirement — but it changes how we schedule a tear-off in January.
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View Roof Maintenance →Wichita Falls remains on the 2015 IRC with the 2006 energy code — two cycles behind most of Texas. Nortex Regional Planning Commission publishes no amendment package, so the city wrote its own, and we read the full list: six amended sections, none in the roofing chapter. So the 2015 IRC roofing provisions apply as published, unmodified. A contractor working from 2021 code references is working from the wrong document here.
Wichita Falls has never filled in IRC Table R301.2(1), which is where a city states its design wind speed. There is no adopted figure to cite. We confirm the applicable criteria with the building official rather than importing 115 mph from Dallas or 105 from Abilene. If a competing bid states a Wichita Falls design wind speed with confidence, that is worth a question.
Section 46-20(9) permits construction from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., seven days a week — substantially more latitude than Kennedale's 6 p.m. stop or Benbrook's Sunday ban. After a hail event, when getting a roof dried in matters more than the calendar, that window is a real advantage. We still tell your neighbours before we use the far end of it.
Don't see your question? Call us at (469) 936-7663 — we're happy to talk it through.
The 2015 International Residential Code, with the 2006 energy code alongside. That is two full cycles behind most of Texas — Dallas-area cities are on 2021, Sugar Land moved to 2024 in January 2026. Nortex Regional Planning Commission does not publish an amendment package, so Wichita Falls writes its own; there are six amended sections in the whole code and none of them is in the roofing chapter. The 2015 IRC roofing provisions therefore apply exactly as published.
There isn't one. Wichita Falls has never filled in the climate and geographic design criteria table, which is the part of the code where a city states its design wind speed, frost line, ice barrier requirement and similar. For comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth publishes 115 mph, Abilene 105, Pearland 140. We confirm the applicable criteria with the building official for each job rather than borrowing a figure from another city and presenting it as local.
Yes, for any tear-off. The fee is set by a separate ordinance that is not posted online, so we will not quote a figure — we confirm it with the city when we pull your permit rather than guessing at it.
Section 46-20(9) allows construction from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., seven days a week. That is one of the most generous windows of any city we work in — compare Kennedale, which stops at 6:00 p.m., or Benbrook, which bans Sunday work outright. After a storm it genuinely helps, because getting a roof dried in is usually more urgent than which day of the week it is.
May, slightly ahead of April — 60 distinct hail days in May against 55 in April. That is later than the North Texas pattern most roofing advice is written around, and consistent with the rest of West Texas. Early summer, once the season has run, is the most informative time for an inspection.
Genuinely elevated. Wichita County logs 30 non-thunderstorm high wind events over this period against Dallas County's seven — days when strong straight-line wind loads a roof with no storm attached. That is well short of Lubbock County's 124, so we are not going to claim a Panhandle-scale wind story, but it is four times the Metroplex rate and it puts the emphasis on fastening and edge detail.
More than a Dallas-oriented page would suggest. Wichita Falls sits far enough north that winter storms reach it harder, and the February 2021 statewide freeze is inside the modern record. The code does not require ice barrier underlayment here and we will not sell it as a code requirement — there are good reasons to use it in valleys and at penetrations, but honesty about which is which matters. What it mainly affects is scheduling: we will not leave a tear-off dried in overnight ahead of an ice event.
It affected this city profoundly, and we are going to be careful about overclaiming. Terrible Tuesday on April 10, 1979 was an F4 with a 12.9-mile path up to 1,760 yards wide; 42 people died, around 1,700 were injured, and the National Weather Service records 3,095 homes destroyed. We tested whether the rebuild shows as a distinct cohort in the housing data the way Waco's 1953 tornado does, and it does not hold up — the 1979-82 rebuild straddles two census decade bins, and the oil boom and Sheppard Air Force Base are inseparable confounders. The history is real. The tidy statistical story is not, so we are not telling it.
The modern record runs from 2000 and carries the full hail and wind profile described above rather than a single defining event. That is worth saying plainly, because a roofing pitch built on a storm from 1979 is a pitch built on something that has no bearing on the condition of your roof today. What matters for your house is the 60 hail days in May, the 30 high-wind days, and how your roof was fastened.
Not particularly, for roofing specifically. The roofing chapters of the 2015, 2018 and 2021 IRC are substantially similar for asphalt shingles — the layer rules, tear-off triggers, underlayment and drip edge requirements have not changed much across those cycles. Where older code editions matter more is energy provisions and electrical work, and Wichita Falls' 2006 energy code is a genuine outlier. For a straightforward re-roof, the practical difference is small.
Call us at (469) 936-7663, or request your free estimate online — most inspections are scheduled within 24–48 hours.
(469) 936-7663