Noise Levels in Northwest Wilmington, Wilmington, DE | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Northwest Wilmington
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,693
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
52% of Northwest Wilmington residents
65 dBA
Loudest residential point
Busy restaurant
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Northwest Wilmington 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 1,693 Northwest Wilmington residents, or 51.5%, live above that level. By land area, 65.7% of Northwest Wilmington is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Northwest Wilmington residents, grouped by direction from the center of Northwest Wilmington. Central Northwest Wilmington carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Northwest Wilmington carries the lowest. Just 14% of residents in Eastern Northwest Wilmington live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Central Northwest Wilmington.
Central Northwest Wilmington
58.2 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
77% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Northwest Wilmington
48.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Northwest Wilmington
57.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
68% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Northwest Wilmington
53.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Northwest Wilmington
57.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
76% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Northwest Wilmington sounds about 96% louder than Eastern Northwest Wilmington to the human ear, a 9.7 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 65 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
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
165 ft
50 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
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 28% of Northwest Wilmington sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 50% 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
Philadelphia International (PHL) sits northeast of Northwest Wilmington. 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 Northwest Wilmington, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Northwest Wilmington
The bar chart below shows the share of Northwest Wilmington residents in each noise band. About 40% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 21% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Northwest Wilmington Compares
Northwest Wilmington sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Northwest Wilmington's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Brandywine Village, Cloutier Court, Highlands, and Hedgeville.
Average noise level (dBA)
Northwest Wilmington's 54.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Delaware as a whole averages 53.5 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Northwest Wilmington because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 51.5% of Northwest Wilmington 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, 65.7% of Northwest Wilmington's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Delaware average of 38.3% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Northwest Wilmington
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 28% of Northwest Wilmington is under tree cover (heavier 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.
Airport noise is directional. Philadelphia International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest 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.
