Noise Levels in Holmes Mill, KY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
42 dBA
Average noise across Holmes Mill
Quiet suburban street at night
7
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
8% of Holmes Mill residents
61 dBA
Loudest residential point
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Holmes Mill 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
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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 7 Holmes Mill residents, or 7.6%, live above that level. By land area, 15.2% of Holmes Mill is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Holmes Mill residents, grouped by direction from the center of Holmes Mill. Southern Holmes Mill carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Holmes Mill carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Western Holmes Mill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Southern Holmes Mill.
Eastern Holmes Mill
41.8 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
12% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Holmes Mill
51.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Holmes Mill
41.7 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Holmes Mill sounds about 103% louder than Western Holmes Mill to the human ear, a 10.2 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 Ky-38 do you need to be?
Ky-38 produces an estimated 55 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
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
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 41% of Holmes Mill sits under tree canopy (heavier than most cities) and roughly 17% 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 Holmes Mill
The bar chart below shows the share of Holmes Mill 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 Holmes Mill Compares
Holmes Mill sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Holmes Mill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Rutherford, Coalgood, Lejunior, and Black Bottom.
Average noise level (dBA)
Holmes Mill's 42.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Kentucky as a whole averages 50.5 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Holmes Mill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 7.6% of Holmes Mill 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, 15.2% of Holmes Mill's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Kentucky average of 23.2% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Holmes Mill
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 Ky-38 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 41% of Holmes Mill is under tree cover (heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is low-density developed open space. 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.
