Noise Levels in Somervell County, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
44 dBA
Average noise across Somervell County
Quiet suburban street at night
510
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
6% of Somervell County residents
68 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Somervell County 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 510 Somervell County residents, or 6.4%, live above that level. By land area, 6.0% of Somervell County is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Somervell County residents, grouped by direction from the center of Somervell County. Central Somervell County carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Somervell County carries the lowest. Just 2% of residents in Eastern Somervell County live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Central Somervell County.
Central Somervell County
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
36% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Somervell County
41.4 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
2% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Somervell County
46.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Somervell County
41.9 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
2% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Somervell County
43.6 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Somervell County sounds about 145% louder than Eastern Somervell County to the human ear, a 12.9 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 do you need to be?
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
56 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 20% of Somervell County sits under tree canopy (about average for counties) and roughly 11% 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 Somervell County. 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 Somervell County
The bar chart below shows the share of Somervell County residents in each noise band. About 93% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 1% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Somervell County Compares
Somervell County sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Somervell County's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Bosque County, Hamilton County, Comanche County, and Hood County.
Average noise level (dBA)
Somervell County's 43.8 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Somervell County because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 6.4% of Somervell County 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, 6.0% of Somervell County'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 Somervell County
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 20% of Somervell County is under tree cover (about average for counties), and the dominant land cover is grassland. 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.
