Noise Levels in Carter Lake, IA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Carter Lake
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,471
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
52% of Carter Lake residents
73 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Carter Lake 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
Click the map to explore
35 dBa55 dBa (EPA limit)90+ dBa
3545557090
Quietest (dBA)Loudest
Colorblind friendlyoff
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 1,471 Carter Lake residents, or 52.0%, live above that level. By land area, 57.3% of Carter Lake is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Carter Lake residents, grouped by direction from the center of Carter Lake. Northern Carter Lake carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Carter Lake carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Western Carter Lake live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Northern Carter Lake.
Central Carter Lake
55.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
55% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Carter Lake
56.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
63% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Carter Lake
57.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
70% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Carter Lake
53.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
53% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Carter Lake
51.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Carter Lake sounds about 54% louder than Western Carter Lake to the human ear, a 6.2 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 North 9TH Street, N do you need to be?
North 9TH Street, N produces an estimated 60 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
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
47 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 4% of Carter Lake sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most cities) and roughly 44% 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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Airport Noise
Eppley Airfield (OMA) sits northeast of Carter Lake. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 50 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Carter Lake, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Carter Lake
The bar chart below shows the share of Carter Lake residents in each noise band. About 44% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 9% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Carter Lake Compares
Carter Lake sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Carter Lake's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Mineola, Crescent, Logan, and Missouri Valley.
Average noise level (dBA)
Carter Lake's 55.2 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Iowa as a whole averages 52.2 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Carter Lake because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 52.0% of Carter Lake residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 57.3% of Carter Lake's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Iowa average of 23.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Carter Lake
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 North 9TH Street, N 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 4% of Carter Lake is under tree cover (much lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is medium-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.
Airport noise is directional. Eppley Airfield's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
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.
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.
