Noise Levels in Winters, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

50 dBA
Average noise across Winters
Quiet office
1,640
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
19% of Winters residents
83 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Winters 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
Winters, CA Map of Noise Levels in Winters
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 1,640 Winters residents, or 19.3%, live above that level. By land area, 20.0% of Winters is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Winters compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Winters

Average noise levels for Winters residents, grouped by direction from the center of Winters. Central Winters carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Winters carries the lowest. Just 8% of residents in Southern Winters live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Central Winters.

Central Winters

53.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

31% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Winters

49.8 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

22% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Winters

52.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

18% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Winters

46.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

8% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Winters

49.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

18% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Central Winters sounds about 57% louder than Southern Winters to the human ear, a 6.5 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 I-505 do you need to be?

I-505 produces an estimated 75 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
75 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
61 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 5% of Winters sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most cities) and roughly 30% 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 Winters

The bar chart below shows the share of Winters residents in each noise band. About 84% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Winters Compares

Winters sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Winters's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Dixon, Esparto, La Riviera, and St. Helena.

Average noise level (dBA)

Winters's 50.2 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Winters because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 19.3% of Winters 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, 20.0% of Winters's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Winters

  • 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 I-505 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 5% of Winters is under tree cover (much lighter than most cities), 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.

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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