Noise Levels in Kalem, MS | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
53 dBA
Average noise across Kalem
Quiet office to normal conversation
18
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
7% of Kalem residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Kalem 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 18 Kalem residents, or 6.7%, live above that level. By land area, 19.1% of Kalem is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Kalem residents, grouped by direction from the center of Kalem. Southern Kalem carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Kalem carries the lowest. Just 4% of residents in Northern Kalem live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern Kalem.
Eastern Kalem
58.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Kalem
46.3 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
4% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Kalem
58.6 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Kalem
48.2 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Kalem sounds about 135% louder than Northern Kalem to the human ear, a 12.3 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 Interstate 20 do you need to be?
Interstate 20 produces an estimated 76 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
76 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
63 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 73% of Kalem 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.
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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Kalem. 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 Kalem
The bar chart below shows the share of Kalem residents in each noise band. About 57% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 35% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Kalem Compares
Kalem sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Kalem's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Harperville, Norris, Hillsboro, and Forkville.
Average noise level (dBA)
Kalem's 53.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Mississippi as a whole averages 47.9 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Kalem because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 6.7% of Kalem residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 19.1% of Kalem's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Mississippi average of 17.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Kalem
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 Interstate 20 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 Kalem is under tree cover (much heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is pasture / hay. 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.
