“Drop the bass” took on something of a new meaning in D.C. over the weekend.

A two-day electronic dance music festival on the grounds of RFK Stadium drew a chorus of loud complaints on Sunday night, largely from D.C. residents and even some in Maryland who said they could hear — and feel — the pulsating oontz oontz beats from miles away.

And the weather was mostly to blame, with a blanket of warm air amplifying already loud music and carrying it to the ears of unwilling listeners as far away as parts of Maryland.

The musical culprit was Project Glow Fest, which Mayor Muriel Bowser touted on Friday as a “vibrant celebration of community and dance.” But responses on Twitter, Facebook, and neighborhood listservs from Brookland all the way to Cheverly, Maryland, were far less celebratory, with residents angrily decrying (and some merely marveling at) what they were being forced to hear.

“I’m over 3 miles away as the crow flies and this shit is shaking our house,” said one Twitter user.

“The noise level at 10:12 pm from the Glow Festival is unacceptable. Did I say I am 3.5 miles away in Woodridge? Some of us have to work tomorrow. I’ve lost sleep and you have lost my vote. My neighbors are saying the same thing,” offered another, throwing in an unexpected curveball in the coming June 21 primary.

Some residents posted videos from outside their homes with music clearly audible in the background; one Brookland mother wrote on the neighborhood’s email listserv that she measured the volume at 71 decibels in her baby’s bedroom at 10:27 p.m. (the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner, though this was one more than three miles away); others worried about possible impacts on migrating birds; and some residents who called 311 to complain were told that such complaints were coming in as regularly as a bass drum going at 140 beats per minute. (The D.C. Office of United Communications did not immediately have data on the number of noise complaints called in on Sunday.)

One Ward 5 ANC commissioner fired off a blistering missive to Bowser about the event.

“The tribal beat, the thump thump, is shaking houses to the foundation, rattling the nerves of everyone especially our seniors, assaulting their mental health and well-being. This is deliberately creating an indescribably disconcerting and untenable audio terrorist assault,” wrote Woodridge ANC commissioner Jeremiah Montague Jr. “Let us be clear, if this volume is disrupting life miles from the event, I fear for those who live in closest proximity.”

Denise Krepp, a fellow ANC commissioner who lives a block from the RFK campus, sent her own email to D.C. officials on Monday morning, complaining not just of the volume, but also festival attendees parking on neighborhood streets (which is not permitted) and urinating in alleys.

The complaints about the music even confounded police officers in Mt. Rainier, Maryland.

“We have had many calls, emails, and texts concerning the music that seems to be rattling our city. Our officers went through the city last night and shut down every source of loud music and then the music returned today. Once again, MRPD officers searched the city and neighboring jurisdictions for a source but were unable to locate the source of the music. An off duty officer, who lives in the city, followed the sound of the music into D.C. and located the source. The officer reported back that there is techno music being played at RFK stadium … and that the sound does indeed travel back towards the city,” explained the department on its Facebook page on Sunday.

Now, debates over loud noises — and whether dealing with them is part and parcel of living in a city — are hardly new to D.C. Back in 2018 and 2019 the D.C. Council considered a bill that would stiffen enforcement of noise regulations after some residents in Chinatown and Penn Quarter complained of loud street musicians; the legislation never moved, but was reintroduced last year. And two decades ago, a Grand Prix auto race set for the RFK parking lots was canceled because of concerns about how much noise the neighboring Kingman Park would be subjected to.

But Sunday’s beat of complaints was also fueled by an unexpected factor: the weather.

“Why did so many people far and wide hear the sound of the concert at RFK stadium? An inversion,” tweeted meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, who’s best known for his work with the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang but also does weather reports for WAMU 88.5. “Surface cooled off, warm air was left above, and that acted like a ceiling for the lower atmosphere. Sound bounced and traveled.”

Gary Ehrlich, an expert in acoustics with Virginia-based Hush Acoustics, agrees that the inversion was what did it. “At long distances literally the most important thing is the atmospheric conditions,” he says. “Normally the air gets colder the higher you get. But every once in a while we have an inversion layer. It bends the sound back down to the ground.”

Ehrlich says he’s worked on projects where the presence of wind or an inversion accounted for a 30- to 40-decibel jump in volume at a distance. “It’s startling when you experience it first hand,” he says.

Also, the style of music could have played a role — lower frequencies simply travel further. (Recall years ago that D.C. residents could hear the sound of cannon firings in Arlington; back in 2011 another electronic music festival at RFK drew similar complaints about noise.) Had the Indigo Girls been performing at RFK on Sunday, it’s less likely that as many people miles away would have heard them.

In a tweet, Events D.C., which controls the RFK site, apologized to people who had dealt with the noise. “We take our responsibility to the community seriously. We will implement changes at future events to better control noise levels. Events DC will continue to address these issues as a top priority,” it said.

“We’re going at look at reviewing our policies for operating hours and days [of festivals],” added Events D.C. communications director Chinyere Hubbard in an interview with DCist/WAMU. “We’re also going to look at adjusting the placement of speakers and we’ll enhance monitoring of speakers during concerts to hopefully better control noise levels in the community.”

This weekend the Broccoli City Festival takes over the parking lots around RFK, so if you’re concerned, make sure to check the weather.

This post has been updated to include a statement from Events D.C.