This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Jacobs Prairie 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.
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 23 Jacobs Prairie residents, or 4.0%, live above that level. By land area, 6.8% of Jacobs Prairie is above 55 dBA.
See how noise in Jacobs Prairie compares to similar-sized cities.
Noise by Part of Jacobs Prairie
Average noise levels for Jacobs Prairie residents, grouped by direction from the center of Jacobs Prairie. Southern Jacobs Prairie carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Jacobs Prairie carries the lowest. Just 2% of residents in Western Jacobs Prairie live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Southern Jacobs Prairie.
Central Jacobs Prairie
2% of people above 55 dBA
Eastern Jacobs Prairie
6% of people above 55 dBA
Northern Jacobs Prairie
3% of people above 55 dBA
Southern Jacobs Prairie
6% of people above 55 dBA
Western Jacobs Prairie
2% of people above 55 dBA
Southern Jacobs Prairie sounds about 64% louder than Western Jacobs Prairie to the human ear, a 7.1 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.
Loudest Road Corridors
The model evaluates every road in Jacobs Prairie using federal traffic counts, posted speeds, heavy-truck ratios, and pavement type. The source level shown is the modeled noise at the road centerline, where it is loudest. Noise drops with distance, faster in vegetated areas and slower over open pavement.
How far back from 133RD Ave do you need to be?
133RD Ave 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.
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 10% of Jacobs Prairie sits under tree canopy (lighter 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 Jacobs Prairie
The bar chart below shows the share of Jacobs Prairie residents in each noise band. About 99% 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 Jacobs Prairie Compares
Jacobs Prairie sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Jacobs Prairie's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with St. Martin, Opole, St. Rosa, and New Munich.
Average noise level (dBA)
Jacobs Prairie's 43.5 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Minnesota as a whole averages 53.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Jacobs Prairie because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 4.0% of Jacobs Prairie 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, 6.8% of Jacobs Prairie's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Minnesota average of 31.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Jacobs Prairie
- 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 133RD Ave 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 10% of Jacobs Prairie is under tree cover (lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is cultivated cropland. 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.