Noise Levels in Santa Elena, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

36 dBA
Average noise across Santa Elena
Soft rainfall
0
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
0% of Santa Elena residents
58 dBA
Loudest residential point
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Santa Elena 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
Santa Elena, TX Map of Noise Levels in Santa Elena
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 0 Santa Elena residents, or 0.0%, live above that level. By land area, 0.1% of Santa Elena is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Santa Elena compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Santa Elena

Average noise levels for Santa Elena residents, grouped by direction from the center of Santa Elena. Eastern Santa Elena carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Santa Elena carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Western Santa Elena live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fraction of the share in Eastern Santa Elena.

Eastern Santa Elena

38.2 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Santa Elena

34.8 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Santa Elena

33.6 dBA · Quiet
Whisper

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Santa Elena sounds about 38% louder than Western Santa Elena to the human ear, a 4.6 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 58 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
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
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 0% of Santa Elena sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most cities) and roughly 0% 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 Santa Elena

The bar chart below shows the share of Santa Elena residents in each noise band. About 100% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Santa Elena Compares

Santa Elena sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Santa Elena's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Santa Catarina, Delmita, San Isidro, and Puerto Rico.

Average noise level (dBA)

Santa Elena's 36.0 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Santa Elena because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 0.0% of Santa Elena residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's fewer than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 0.1% of Santa Elena's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Santa Elena

  • 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 0% of Santa Elena is under tree cover (much lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is shrub / scrub. 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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