Noise Levels in Middle Amana, IA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Middle Amana
Quiet office
27
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
10% of Middle Amana residents
106 dBA
Loudest residential point
Power saw
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Middle Amana 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 27 Middle Amana residents, or 10.3%, live above that level. By land area, 10.0% of Middle Amana is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Middle Amana residents, grouped by direction from the center of Middle Amana. Southern Middle Amana carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Middle Amana carries the lowest. Just 7% of residents in Northern Middle Amana live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Southern Middle Amana.
Central Middle Amana
51.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
12% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Middle Amana
46.0 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Middle Amana
51.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Middle Amana
47.8 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
1% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Middle Amana sounds about 43% louder than Northern Middle Amana to the human ear, a 5.2 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 US-6 E do you need to be?
US-6 E produces an estimated 60 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
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
46 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
38 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 13% of Middle Amana sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 33% 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 Middle Amana. 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 Middle Amana
The bar chart below shows the share of Middle Amana residents in each noise band. About 97% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 3% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Middle Amana Compares
Middle Amana sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Middle Amana's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Windham, Luzerne, Watkins, and Conroy.
Average noise level (dBA)
Middle Amana's 50.6 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Iowa as a whole averages 52.2 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Middle Amana because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 10.3% of Middle Amana 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, 10.0% of Middle Amana's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Iowa average of 23.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Middle Amana
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 US-6 E 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 13% of Middle Amana is under tree cover (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.
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.
