Originally Posted by
grnclvrs
If they are screaming at 4am, then yes. The run ups on the 80 can be heard in the neighborhoods south of Lake Jessup. There are frequent discussions on Facebook regarding them.
Well in all fairness there is no expectation for people that far away to be able to hear it.
What is happening is a very specific phenomenon of bounce or skip where the sound from the airport is getting up into the atmosphere and then bouncing back down and landing on the south side of the lake in Winter Springs.
The lake probably acts as a thermal refactor of some sort amplifying this phenomenon since the air over the lake is a different temperature than the air over the land.
Sound is an inverse square like all energy wavefront distribution, meaning that it will half the volume every time the distance is doubled. People on the south side of the lake shouldn't be able to hear it but they do because of this unique geographic feature.