Noise Levels in Weems, Manassas, VA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

52 dBA
Average noise across Weems
Quiet office to normal conversation
462
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
12% of Weems residents
66 dBA
Loudest residential point
Busy restaurant

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Weems 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
Weems, Manassas, VA Map of Noise Levels in Weems
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 462 Weems residents, or 12.4%, live above that level. By land area, 15.6% of Weems is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Weems compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.

Noise by Part of Weems

Average noise levels for Weems residents, grouped by direction from the center of Weems. Western Weems carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Weems carries the lowest. Just 1% of residents in Central Weems live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Western Weems.

Central Weems

50.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office

1% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Weems

51.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

18% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Weems

51.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office

7% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Weems

53.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

35% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Weems

54.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

20% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Weems sounds about 37% louder than Central Weems to the human ear, a 4.5 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 Weems Rd do you need to be?

Weems Rd produces an estimated 54 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
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
35 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 42% of Weems sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 32% 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

Washington Dulles International (IAD) sits north of Weems. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, 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 75 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Weems, particularly to the south, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.

How Noise Is Distributed Across Weems

The bar chart below shows the share of Weems residents in each noise band. About 89% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 3% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Weems Compares

Weems sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Weems's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Baldwin District, Wellington, West Gate, and downtown-manassas-manassas-va.

Average noise level (dBA)

Weems's 51.7 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Virginia as a whole averages 52.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Weems because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 12.4% of Weems 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, 15.6% of Weems's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Virginia average of 30.0% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Weems

  • 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 Weems Rd 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 42% of Weems is under tree cover (much heavier than most neighborhoods), 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.
  • Airport noise is directional. Washington Dulles International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the north. Neighborhoods to the south 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.

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.