Noise Levels in Starmount Forest, Greensboro, NC | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
53 dBA
Average noise across Starmount Forest
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,316
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
26% of Starmount Forest residents
77 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Starmount Forest 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 1,316 Starmount Forest residents, or 26.4%, live above that level. By land area, 33.9% of Starmount Forest is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Starmount Forest residents, grouped by direction from the center of Starmount Forest. Southern Starmount Forest carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Starmount Forest carries the lowest. Just 6% of residents in Northern Starmount Forest live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Southern Starmount Forest.
Central Starmount Forest
50.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
5% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Starmount Forest
55.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
44% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Starmount Forest
44.2 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Starmount Forest
56.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Starmount Forest
51.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
19% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Starmount Forest sounds about 136% louder than Northern Starmount Forest to the human ear, a 12.4 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 US Hwy 421 do you need to be?
US Hwy 421 produces an estimated 71 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
71 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
59 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 43% of Starmount Forest sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 29% 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
Piedmont Triad International (GSO) sits west of Starmount Forest. 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 55 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Starmount Forest, 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 Starmount Forest
The bar chart below shows the share of Starmount Forest residents in each noise band. About 79% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 9% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Starmount Forest Compares
Starmount Forest sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Starmount Forest's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with New Irving Park, Adams Farm, Lindley Park, and Cumberland.
Average noise level (dBA)
Starmount Forest's 53.1 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. North Carolina as a whole averages 49.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Starmount Forest because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 26.4% of Starmount Forest 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, 33.9% of Starmount Forest's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a North Carolina average of 22.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Starmount Forest
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 US Hwy 421 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 43% of Starmount Forest is under tree cover (much heavier than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is low-density developed open space. 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. Piedmont Triad International'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.
