Noise Levels in Quail Hill, Irvine, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Quail Hill
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,357
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
43% of Quail Hill residents
72 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Quail 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 2,357 Quail Hill residents, or 43.0%, live above that level. By land area, 42.9% of Quail Hill is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Quail Hill residents, grouped by direction from the center of Quail Hill. Eastern Quail Hill carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Quail Hill carries the lowest. Just 33% of residents in Southern Quail Hill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Eastern Quail Hill.
Central Quail Hill
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
45% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Quail Hill
60.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
60% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Quail Hill
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
30% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Quail Hill
52.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
33% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Quail Hill
53.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
33% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Quail Hill sounds about 72% louder than Southern Quail Hill to the human ear, a 7.8 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 72 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
72 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
38 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 17% of Quail Hill sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 62% 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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Airport Noise
John Wayne/Orange County (SNA) sits west of Quail Hill. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, 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 65 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Quail Hill, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Quail Hill
The bar chart below shows the share of Quail Hill residents in each noise band. About 56% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 6% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Quail Hill Compares
Quail Hill sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Quail Hill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with University Town Center, Irvine Business Complex, El Toro Marine Air Station, and Central City Santa Ana.
Average noise level (dBA)
Quail Hill's 54.1 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Quail Hill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 43.0% of Quail 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, 42.9% of Quail Hill'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 Quail 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 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 17% of Quail Hill is under tree cover (about average for 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.
Airport noise is directional. John Wayne/Orange County's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east 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.
