Tucson ranks as a quiet city, but we can make some noise

But don’t think for one second Tucson can’t get loud.

We’re talking ear-ringing, heart-pounding, pulse-racing loud.

Here’s three places where quiet is the last thing you’ll find.

McKale Center at ALKEME Arena

A full house at McKale during Wildcat basketball season can blow that decibel meter well beyond Tucson’s measly average of 14.27.

Heck, Arizona Pride sitting under the basket could easily come in at 40 or 50 decibels when you get the brass section involved.

But we don’t need the added noise from the band to get the house rockin’ especially when we’re playing rival teams like BYU or our in-state nemesis Arizona State. And pity the visiting team that catches us in an off-night/close game. The closer the game, the louder we scream.

And although the women’s basketball team fills only about half the capacity of the men’s, their fans are also screamers.

Playground Rooftop bar

Stroll along East Congress Street on a weekend night and prepare to feel a thumping in your chest the closer you get to the corner of South Fifth Avenue and East Congress Street.

The DJ-driven soundtrack coming from the Playground Rooftop bar at 278 E. Congress St. drowns out the traffic below. Folks emerging from the neighboring jazz club at Hotel Congress are bombasted with the thumping and bumping of EDM house music. And for some reason, the music gets louder the closer it is to last call.

Julia Keen neighborhood

Those poor residents living next door to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in the Julia Keen neighborhood have to put up with military planes overhead, rumbling and shaking their homes at all hours.

At 100 to 125 decibels, those planes could rock your fine china out of the cabinet.

However, the feds this month inactivated the base’s A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) planes that had been used nearly 50 years to train pilots. Things should quiet down in the Julia Keen hood.

That is until the next time D-M hosts training exercises with the beastly F-35 Lightning jet fighters, like the ones that were here for a week last February. The F-35s clock in at 115 to 124 decibels at takeoff.