Noise Levels in Rehoboth Beach, DE | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

53 dBA
Average noise across Rehoboth Beach
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,786
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
26% of Rehoboth Beach residents
71 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Rehoboth Beach 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
Rehoboth Beach, DE Map of Noise Levels in Rehoboth Beach
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

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 2,786 Rehoboth Beach residents, or 26.2%, live above that level. By land area, 40.8% of Rehoboth Beach is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Rehoboth Beach compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Rehoboth Beach

Average noise levels for Rehoboth Beach residents, grouped by direction from the center of Rehoboth Beach. Eastern Rehoboth Beach carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Rehoboth Beach carries the lowest. Just 2% of residents in Central Rehoboth Beach live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Eastern Rehoboth Beach.

Central Rehoboth Beach

45.4 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

2% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Rehoboth Beach

55.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

42% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Rehoboth Beach

54.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

23% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Rehoboth Beach

52.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

27% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Rehoboth Beach

52.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

18% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Rehoboth Beach sounds about 99% louder than Central Rehoboth Beach to the human ear, a 9.9 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 Sr1n do you need to be?

Sr1n produces an estimated 68 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
68 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
47 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
39 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 24% of Rehoboth Beach sits under tree canopy (about average for 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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How Noise Is Distributed Across Rehoboth Beach

The bar chart below shows the share of Rehoboth Beach residents in each noise band. About 55% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 13% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Rehoboth Beach Compares

Rehoboth Beach sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Rehoboth Beach's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Milton, Dagsboro, Lewes, and Selbyville.

Average noise level (dBA)

Rehoboth Beach's 53.3 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Delaware as a whole averages 53.5 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Rehoboth Beach because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 26.2% of Rehoboth Beach 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, 40.8% of Rehoboth Beach's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Delaware average of 38.3% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Rehoboth Beach

  • 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 Sr1n 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 24% of Rehoboth Beach is under tree cover (about average for 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.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

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.

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