Noise Levels in Bee County, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

45 dBA
Average noise across Bee County
Quiet suburban street at night
1,669
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
10% of Bee County residents
76 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Bee County at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.

Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Bee County, TX Map of Noise Levels in Bee County
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

What the numbers sound like

  • 30 dBAWhisper
  • 40 dBASoft rainfall
  • 45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
  • 50 dBAQuiet office
  • 55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
  • 60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
  • 65 dBABusy restaurant
  • 70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
  • 80 dBACity bus interior

Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold

The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 1,669 Bee County residents, or 9.8%, live above that level. By land area, 12.8% of Bee County is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Bee County compares to similar-sized counties.

Noise by Part of Bee County

Average noise levels for Bee County residents, grouped by direction from the center of Bee County. Western Bee County carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Bee County carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Eastern Bee County live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Western Bee County.

Central Bee County

44.6 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Bee County

37.0 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Bee County

47.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

14% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Bee County

41.8 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

4% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Bee County

48.1 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

13% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Bee County sounds about 116% louder than Eastern Bee County to the human ear, a 11.1 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.

How far back from US Hwy 181 do you need to be?

US Hwy 181 produces an estimated 71 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.

At source
71 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
41 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 5% of Bee County sits under tree canopy (lighter than most counties) and roughly 28% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.

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How Noise Is Distributed Across Bee County

The bar chart below shows the share of Bee County residents in each noise band. About 88% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 1% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Bee County Compares

Bee County sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Bee County's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Aransas County, Live Oak County, Karnes County, and Jim Wells County.

Average noise level (dBA)

Bee County's 45.4 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Bee County because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 9.8% of Bee County residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 12.8% of Bee County's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Bee County

  • Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from US Hwy 181 and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
  • Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 5% of Bee County is under tree cover (lighter than most counties), and the dominant land cover is low-intensity developed land. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.

Sources & Methodology

The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.

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