The 2026 Extreme Precipitation Symposium: What to Know
The next California Extreme Precipitation Symposium meets July 16, 2026, at UC Davis. It is open to the public, low cost, and focused on the storms that decide the American River's year.
American River Canyon Alliance
The next California Extreme Precipitation Symposium meets Thursday, July 16, 2026, at the UC Davis Conference Center, 550 Alumni Lane in Davis. It runs as a single day of scientific and technical talks. Registration and the full agenda are posted at cepsym.org.
The event is open to the public. Organizers keep the cost low on purpose, to draw a mix of scientists, engineers, water managers, and curious residents. The 2026 theme is "From Science to Solutions: Preparing for Extreme Weather Events in California." The symposium is a project of the American River Watershed Institute and is run with the Floodplain Management Association.
The subject matters here in the canyon. A handful of atmospheric rivers deliver most of the water the American River sees each winter. As the Institute puts it, atmospheric rivers produce the extreme precipitation that causes flooding, and without them the region falls into drought. There is little middle ground.
The harder shift is timing. Warming winters push more of that water from snow toward rain. Snow once released slowly through spring. Rain arrives all at once, which changes how reservoirs like Folsom are managed and how fast a flood can build downstream.
The symposium started in 1994 as the California Weather Symposium and now draws more than 200 people each year. If you want to understand the storms that shape this watershed, the registration link and program are at cepsym.org.