Noise Levels in Elmwood Area, Abilene, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Elmwood Area
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,613
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
47% of Elmwood Area residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Elmwood Area 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 1,613 Elmwood Area residents, or 46.7%, live above that level. By land area, 50.5% of Elmwood Area is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Elmwood Area residents, grouped by direction from the center of Elmwood Area. Southern Elmwood Area carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Elmwood Area carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Central Elmwood Area live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern Elmwood Area.
Central Elmwood Area
50.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Elmwood Area
56.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
57% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Elmwood Area
53.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
48% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Elmwood Area
57.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
47% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Elmwood Area
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
40% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Elmwood Area sounds about 69% louder than Central Elmwood Area to the human ear, a 7.6 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 84 do you need to be?
US Hwy 84 produces an estimated 74 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
74 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
43 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 3% of Elmwood Area sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 45% 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 Elmwood Area
The bar chart below shows the share of Elmwood Area residents in each noise band. About 49% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 24% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Elmwood Area Compares
Elmwood Area sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Elmwood Area's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Abilene Heights Area, Westwood Richland, Chimney Rock Area, and Far Southside.
Average noise level (dBA)
Elmwood Area's 55.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Elmwood Area because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 46.7% of Elmwood Area 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, 50.5% of Elmwood Area'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 Elmwood Area
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 84 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 3% of Elmwood Area is under tree cover (much lighter than most neighborhoods), 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.
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.
