This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Jal 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 346 Jal residents, or 22.4%, live above that level. By land area, 21.1% of Jal is above 55 dBA.
See how noise in Jal compares to similar-sized cities.
Noise by Part of Jal
Average noise levels for Jal residents, grouped by direction from the center of Jal. Central Jal carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Jal carries the lowest. Just 14% of residents in Western Jal live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Central Jal.
Central Jal
45% of people above 55 dBA
Eastern Jal
15% of people above 55 dBA
Northern Jal
24% of people above 55 dBA
Southern Jal
13% of people above 55 dBA
Western Jal
14% of people above 55 dBA
Central Jal sounds about 71% louder than Western Jal to the human ear, a 7.7 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 Jal 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 Nm Hwy 18 do you need to be?
Nm Hwy 18 produces an estimated 59 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 0% of Jal sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most cities) and roughly 28% 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.
Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Jal. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Jal
The bar chart below shows the share of Jal residents in each noise band. About 82% 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 Jal Compares
Jal sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Jal's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Eunice, Nadine, Loving, and Otis.
Average noise level (dBA)
Jal's 50.1 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. New Mexico as a whole averages 51.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Jal because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 22.4% of Jal 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, 21.1% of Jal's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New Mexico average of 19.5% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Jal
- 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 Nm Hwy 18 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 0% of Jal is under tree cover (much lighter than most cities), 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.
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.