Noise Levels in Gordontown, NC | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

36 dBA
Average noise across Gordontown
Soft rainfall
0
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
0% of Gordontown residents
57 dBA
Loudest residential point
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Gordontown 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
Gordontown, NC Map of Noise Levels in Gordontown
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 0 Gordontown residents, or 0.4%, live above that level. By land area, 0.5% of Gordontown is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Gordontown compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Gordontown

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

Northern Gordontown

30.5 dBA · Quiet
Whisper

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Gordontown

43.1 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

1% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Gordontown

37.2 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Gordontown sounds about 139% louder than Northern Gordontown to the human ear, a 12.6 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 SR-2205 do you need to be?

SR-2205 produces an estimated 57 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
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
35 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 73% of Gordontown sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 0% 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.

-->

How Noise Is Distributed Across Gordontown

The bar chart below shows the share of Gordontown residents in each noise band. About 100% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Gordontown Compares

Gordontown sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Gordontown's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Rimer, High Rock, New Market, and Millingport.

Average noise level (dBA)

Gordontown's 35.9 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. North Carolina as a whole averages 49.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Gordontown because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 0.4% of Gordontown 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, 0.5% of Gordontown's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a North Carolina average of 22.6% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Gordontown

  • 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 SR-2205 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 73% of Gordontown is under tree cover (much heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is deciduous forest. 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.