Noise Levels in Lea Hill, Auburn, WA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
52 dBA
Average noise across Lea Hill
Quiet office to normal conversation
3,522
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
22% of Lea Hill residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Lea Hill 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 3,522 Lea Hill residents, or 22.1%, live above that level. By land area, 24.7% of Lea Hill is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Lea Hill residents, grouped by direction from the center of Lea Hill. Eastern Lea Hill carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Lea Hill carries the lowest. Just 14% of residents in Northern Lea Hill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Eastern Lea Hill.
Central Lea Hill
50.8 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Lea Hill
53.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Lea Hill
49.0 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Lea Hill
52.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
25% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Lea Hill
51.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
33% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Lea Hill sounds about 35% louder than Northern Lea Hill to the human ear, a 4.3 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 SE 320TH St do you need to be?
SE 320TH St 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
41 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 30% of Lea Hill sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) 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 Lea Hill. 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.
Airport Noise
Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) sits northwest of Lea Hill. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 45 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Lea Hill, particularly to the southeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Lea Hill
The bar chart below shows the share of Lea Hill residents in each noise band. About 83% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 7% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Lea Hill Compares
Lea Hill sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Lea Hill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Rainier Beach, Northeast Tacoma, Central, and New Tacoma.
Average noise level (dBA)
Lea Hill's 52.2 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Washington as a whole averages 51.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Lea Hill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 22.1% of Lea Hill 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, 24.7% of Lea Hill's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Washington average of 27.7% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Lea Hill
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 SE 320TH St 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 30% of Lea Hill is under tree cover (heavier than most neighborhoods), 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.
Airport noise is directional. Seattle-Tacoma International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northwest. Neighborhoods to the southeast of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
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.
