Noise Levels in North Country Meadows, Oildale, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across North Country Meadows
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,092
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
39% of North Country Meadows residents
69 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across North Country Meadows 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 2,092 North Country Meadows residents, or 39.2%, live above that level. By land area, 42.3% of North Country Meadows is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for North Country Meadows residents, grouped by direction from the center of North Country Meadows. Western North Country Meadows carries the highest population-weighted average; Central North Country Meadows carries the lowest. Just 29% of residents in Central North Country Meadows live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Western North Country Meadows.
Central North Country Meadows
53.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern North Country Meadows
55.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
40% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern North Country Meadows
53.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern North Country Meadows
56.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
69% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western North Country Meadows
60.8 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
42% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western North Country Meadows sounds about 71% louder than Central North Country Meadows 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.
How far back from do you need to be?
produces an estimated 69 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
69 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
37 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 1% of North Country Meadows sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 56% 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 North Country Meadows. 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 North Country Meadows
The bar chart below shows the share of North Country Meadows residents in each noise band. About 63% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 14% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How North Country Meadows Compares
North Country Meadows sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how North Country Meadows's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Olive Drive Area, La Cresta-Alta Vista, Homaker Park, and Casa Loma.
Average noise level (dBA)
North Country Meadows's 54.9 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than North Country Meadows because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 39.2% of North Country Meadows 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, 42.3% of North Country Meadows's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to North Country Meadows
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 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 1% of North Country Meadows is under tree cover (much lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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.
