The other HVHZ county runs its own rulebook. Enter any Broward ZIP and the calculator opens at 170 mph Risk Cat II, HVHZ flagged, FI-24 conventions applied.
The High Velocity Hurricane Zone runs the full Broward county line — Hillsboro Inlet in the north down to the Hallandale Beach line in the south, the Atlantic west to the Everglades. No coastal-only carve-out, no inland exemption.
HVHZ rules came out of the post-Andrew code reforms and live in the Florida Building Code itself. Four realities apply to every Broward parcel.
Windows, sliding glass doors, French doors, entry doors, garage doors, roof tiles, and shutters must each carry an FL# whose underlying approval is HVHZ-rated.
The approval has to show the full impact-and-cyclic pedigree before a Broward reviewer will accept it on a submittal.
Each FL# on the report is cross-checked against the calculated pressure for that opening's specific zone. Corners govern.
Same Risk Cat II floor countywide. What shifts from address to address is exposure category, the city reviewing the permit, and any FI-24 transition handling — not the wind speed.
| City / ZIP | Risk Cat II | What changes locally |
|---|---|---|
| Fort Lauderdale 33301 HVHZ | 170 mph | Exposure D on A1A barrier-island parcels within ~1 mi of the Atlantic |
| Hollywood 33020 HVHZ | 170 mph | Beach broadwalk district; Hollywood's own building department reviews |
| Pompano Beach 33060 HVHZ | 170 mph | Atlantic high-rise corridor; many 4+ story towers fall outside our PE scope |
| Hallandale Beach 33009 HVHZ | 170 mph | Southernmost coastal Broward; abuts the Miami-Dade line |
| Coral Springs 33071 HVHZ | 170 mph | Far-northwest suburb; Exposure C typical, HVHZ still applies inland |
| Pembroke Pines 33028 HVHZ | 170 mph | Southwest along the Miami-Dade border; full HVHZ jurisdiction |
| Weston 33326 HVHZ | 170 mph | Westernmost incorporated city, against the Everglades — still HVHZ |
| Sunrise 33323 HVHZ | 170 mph | Central Broward; assembly-venue vicinity triggers Cat III scaling |
Full ZIP-by-ZIP detail: Broward County wind speed reference →
Schools and large assembly buildings scale to Risk Cat III; hospitals, fire stations, and the county EOC scale to Cat IV — both above 170 mph. Set the category before you trust the headline number.
The 8th Edition took effect statewide on December 31, 2024, pulling the wind standard from ASCE 7-16 forward to ASCE 7-22. In Broward, FI-24 is the bulletin reviewers reach for on transition-state permits.
ASCE 7-22 refreshed the hurricane climatology and return-period analysis. Broward did not move its 170 mph county floor during the rollout — it sits above the ASCE baseline either way.
ASCE 7-22 added "Partially Open" (GCpi = ±0.18) alongside Enclosed, Partially Enclosed, and Open. It finally fits screened lanais and pool cages correctly. FI-24 documents how Broward expects to see it on submittals.
FBC R301.2(7) sets a 4-ft minimum C&C edge strip where ASCE defaults to 3 ft. Using the 3-ft default is a top first-pass rejection in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Pompano review. We apply 4 ft automatically.
The report header emits ASCE 7-22, FBC 8th Edition, and — for designs that predate the 8th Edition — FI-24, the document a reviewer turns to when deciding whether a prior 7th Edition / ASCE 7-16 submittal still stands.
Broward is wedged between Miami-Dade to the south and Palm Beach to the north, with Collier across the peninsula. Each runs its own logic.
Same HVHZ regime, 5 mph higher floor, centralized RER review. The Miami-Dade NOA is the document Broward accepts on every opening.
This page · HVHZEntire county HVHZ at 170 mph. Review distributed across 31 cities under the Broward Building Code Services Division. FI-24 governs current 8th Edition application.
Non-HVHZ · northAcross the Hillsboro line. Not HVHZ — statewide FL# Product Approval applies instead of HVHZ-specific NOA. Coastal ZIPs at the top of range.
Non-HVHZ · GulfNaples and Marco Island across the peninsula. Same 170 mph speed, but not HVHZ — statewide approval applies. A common SW-Florida product comparable.
Specify HVHZ-rated assemblies and you clear Broward and every other Florida jurisdiction at once. The reverse fails: a non-HVHZ approval will not cover a Broward opening even when its listed pressure exceeds your demand.
ZIP to permit-ready in under 15 minutes.
Any Broward ZIP auto-locks 170 mph, sets the HVHZ flag, and populates the city building department.
II for homes and rentals; III for schools and assembly; IV for hospitals, fire stations, the EOC.
D on A1A frontage, C in suburban core, B only in dense canopy. Enter footprint, mean roof height, roof pitch as X-in-12.
Zone 5 corner flags first. C&C and MWFRS come together; the 4-ft FBC edge strip is already applied.
Pair each opening to an HVHZ FL# at or above its zone pressure. Export PDF, Excel, or schedule .xlsx; request a PE seal if ≤3 stories.
No paid testimonials — a verifiable record and a county-specific rule set.
No. The HVHZ line is the county line, not the shoreline.
Weston against the Everglades, Coral Springs in the far northwest, every parcel in the 31 municipalities — all of it is HVHZ.
A window in Weston needs the same NOA and TAS 201/202/203 pedigree as one on the Fort Lauderdale beach. The only thing that moves inland is exposure category, not the HVHZ flag.
FI-24 is the current Florida Building Information bulletin Broward reviewers reference for 8th Edition (2023) application.
It covers the 7th-to-8th transition, how the HVHZ amendments map onto ASCE 7-22, and the four-enclosure classification (Enclosed, Partially Open, Partially Enclosed, Open).
It sits at the head of a bulletin chain running back to FI-01. Put it on the cover page of any 8th Edition Broward set.
They are two separate HVHZ jurisdictions that set their own Risk Cat II floors. Broward holds at 170 mph; Miami-Dade is 175 mph.
The 5 mph gap cubes through the velocity pressure equation into roughly an 11% pressure difference, which can change which FL# products qualify.
The Miami-Dade NOA is still accepted in Broward, but the wind speed target and submittal package are not interchangeable.
Both are accepted — Broward is method-agnostic.
Storm panels, accordion shutters, roll-downs, and impact glass all satisfy HVHZ protection if the FL# carries an NOA covering HVHZ use and the tested pressures meet or beat the calculated demand for each opening's zone.
The rejection trap is the FL#-to-pressure match: a 70 psf panel listed against an 85 psf Zone 5 corner fails on first review. The report has to make that match explicit, opening by opening.
Yes. There is no small-job carve-out anywhere in Broward.
Any window, sliding glass door, French door, entry door, garage door, or shutter must carry an FL# whose Notice of Acceptance explicitly covers HVHZ use.
On the report each FL# must show these results at or above the design pressure for that opening's zone:
170 mph is the Risk Cat II floor. Schools and large-occupancy assembly buildings scale to Cat III with a higher derived speed.
Essential facilities — hospitals, fire stations, the county EOC, anything that must stay operational after a storm — scale to Cat IV, higher still.
Run the calculator with the correct category; the 170 mph headline is not the Cat III or IV answer.
No. Our in-house PE sign-and-seal is Florida-licensed and capped at three stories.
That covers most Broward permit volume — single-family, townhouses, duplexes, small commercial — but not the A1A condo towers, oceanfront hotels, or any 4-plus-story building.
For those the structural engineer of record provides the seal; the WindLoadCalc output (built to match ASCE 7-22 + FI-24 conventions) is fully adoptable into their stamped package as the wind analysis underneath.
At the municipal level. The Broward County Building Code Services Division is the umbrella authority — it publishes the FI bulletins and county amendments.
But day-to-day plan review and permit issuance happen inside each of the 31 incorporated cities. Fort Lauderdale's intake differs from Hollywood's, which differs from unincorporated Broward.
Confirm the package with the city where the project sits; the underlying code and wind math are identical countywide.
The firm was founded in 2002 as a Florida wind load practice and the online calculator went live in 2006 — among the first ever published.
That is 24 years of Broward FI bulletins read and built into how the tool treats the 170 mph baseline, the HVHZ amendments, and Miami-Dade NOA cross-acceptance.
We have navigated seven ASCE editions inside Broward jurisdiction, 7-95 through 7-22, with a 100% permit-approval record.
One tool, one report, 170 mph locked. FI-24 + FBC 8th Edition aligned, NOA-matchable opening by opening. Or run our free ZIP lookup to confirm a Broward wind speed first.
Punch in any Broward ZIP and the free tool returns the 170 mph Risk Cat II HVHZ figure straight away — no account, no usage cap, and the governing ASCE 7-22 section shown for each value.
Try the free calculator →