Noise Levels in White Caps, Kenosha, WI | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

55 dBA
Average noise across White Caps
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,363
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
40% of White Caps residents
64 dBA
Loudest residential point
Busy restaurant

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across White Caps 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
White Caps, Kenosha, WI Map of Noise Levels in White Caps
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 1,363 White Caps residents, or 39.7%, live above that level. By land area, 51.9% of White Caps is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in White Caps compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.

Noise by Part of White Caps

Average noise levels for White Caps residents, grouped by direction from the center of White Caps. Southern White Caps carries the highest population-weighted average; Western White Caps carries the lowest. Just 25% of residents in Western White Caps live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern White Caps.

Central White Caps

55.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

48% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern White Caps

53.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

29% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern White Caps

54.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

35% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern White Caps

57.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

68% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western White Caps

53.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

25% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern White Caps sounds about 35% louder than Western White Caps to the human ear, a 4.3 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 Cth K do you need to be?

Cth K produces an estimated 55 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
55 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 10% of White Caps sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 43% 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 White Caps

The bar chart below shows the share of White Caps residents in each noise band. About 49% 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 White Caps Compares

White Caps sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how White Caps's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Isetts, Camp Lake, Downtown, and Lance.

Average noise level (dBA)

White Caps's 54.6 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Wisconsin as a whole averages 53.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than White Caps because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 39.7% of White Caps 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, 51.9% of White Caps's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Wisconsin average of 29.6% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to White Caps

  • 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 Cth K 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 10% of White Caps is under tree cover (lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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.