That single value applies from Deerfield Beach down to Hallandale and inland past Sunrise — every plan reviewer in Broward enforces it instead of the lower ASCE 7-22 map number. Below, you can verify your own ZIP and see all four risk categories.
Calculating wind loads since 2002, online since 2006.
Broward sits inside Florida's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, the regulatory carve-out created after Hurricane Andrew exposed how poorly south-Florida construction handled a major storm. The county's basic wind speed is fixed by Florida Building Code R301.2(7) at 170 mph for Risk Category II buildings, which covers the vast majority of single-family homes, townhomes, low-rise condos, and commercial structures inside county limits.
That number is jurisdictional. It is not interpolated from a ZIP centroid, it does not vary block by block, and it does not drop as you move inland from A1A toward the Everglades buffer. Coral Springs designs to 170. Davie designs to 170. Fort Lauderdale designs to 170. The Florida Building Code amendment in R301.2(7) was written precisely to eliminate the inland-vs-coastal arguments that plagued permit reviews under earlier code cycles.
What does scale with location is the exposure category, which captures terrain roughness, plus the height-dependent velocity pressure term Kz from ASCE 7-22 Table 26.10-1. Both move design pressures up or down significantly even though the basic wind speed entering the equation stays at 170 across the county.
Pre-filled to Fort Lauderdale (33301). Edit the ZIP or risk category and the result updates live, citing whether the value comes from a Florida Building Code override or the ASCE 7-22 map.
Every Risk Category gets its own basic wind speed for the same county. Risk Cat II (highlighted) is the default for standard residential and commercial buildings; Risk Cat IV applies to essential facilities like hospitals and police stations.
The countywide 170 mph value applies whether the building sits on the beach in Hollywood or 14 miles inland in Coral Springs. The exposure column is informational — the actual exposure category for any specific site must be confirmed against ASCE 7-22 §26.7.
| City | Primary ZIP | Wind Speed (Cat II) | Typical Setting | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Lauderdale | 33301 | 170 mph | Coastal · Atlantic exposure | FBC R301.2(7) |
| Hollywood | 33020 | 170 mph | Coastal / barrier island | FBC R301.2(7) |
| Pompano Beach | 33060 | 170 mph | Coastal · barrier island | FBC R301.2(7) |
| Pembroke Pines | 33027 | 170 mph | Inland suburb | FBC R301.2(7) |
| Coral Springs | 33065 | 170 mph | Inland suburb (~12 mi) | FBC R301.2(7) |
| Davie | 33314 | 170 mph | Inland / mixed | FBC R301.2(7) |
Hurricane Wilma (October 2005) is the storm modern Broward residents remember. It crossed the peninsula from the Gulf into Broward as a strong Cat 2, but the structural lesson was breadth: Wilma's tropical-storm and hurricane-force wind field stretched roughly 400 miles, hammering every ZIP in the county simultaneously. Roof failures clustered in older construction with staple-fastened sheathing and stapled-down shingles, and millions of impact-rated openings — required since 1994 inside HVHZ — visibly outperformed older glazing.
Hurricane Irma (September 2017) tested the FBC product approval system at scale. Irma's eye missed Broward to the west, but the outer eyewall delivered sustained 75-85 mph winds with gusts over 100 mph from Hollywood up through Deerfield. Insurance loss data from the storm showed a roughly 4-to-1 damage ratio between pre-1994 and post-1994 HVHZ-compliant homes — a real-world validation of the 170 mph design value and the NOA-tested envelope it triggers.
Before Andrew (August 1992) struck just south in Miami-Dade, Broward's southern neighborhoods absorbed the storm's northern eyewall and the failures observed there fed directly into the original HVHZ provisions written into the 1994 code revision. Andrew is why Broward shares HVHZ status with Miami-Dade even though the eye made landfall in Homestead.
Florida Building Code Section 1620 defines the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone as Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Inside HVHZ, the basic wind speed override is the most visible change, but the bigger compliance burden is product approval: every exterior opening, every roofing assembly, every soffit panel, and every wall cladding component installed in Broward must carry either a Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance or a Florida Product Approval that explicitly lists HVHZ in its approval scope.
The testing protocols behind those approvals are TAS 201 (large-missile impact: a 9-pound 2x4 fired at 50 ft/s strikes the assembly twice), TAS 202 (cyclic structural pressure cycling for 9,000 cycles representing positive and negative gusts), and TAS 203 (small-missile impact for buildings above 30 feet, using ten ball-bearing impacts per opening). Drawings submitted to Broward plan review must include the FL# or NOA# of every approved assembly, and any substitution requires an engineered alternative with a comparable test report.
Building permits in Broward are issued by individual municipalities — Fort Lauderdale Building Services, Hollywood Department of Building, Pompano Building & Inspections, and so on — not by the county. All of them adopt the Florida Building Code 8th Edition (2023) without amendment and enforce the 170 mph value the same way.
Basic wind speed: 170 mph Risk Cat II (FBC R301.2(7))
Product approval: Miami-Dade NOA or FL Product Approval with HVHZ scope
Missile testing: TAS 201 large missile (every opening), TAS 203 small missile (above 30 ft)
Pressure testing: TAS 202 cyclic, 9,000 cycles
Permitting authority: Individual Broward municipalities, FBC 8th Edition (2023)
Calculating wind loads since 2002, online since 2006.