This year's Extreme Precipitation Symposium at UC Davis will look back 150 years to the devastating winter floods of 1861-62 to try to glean lessons for understanding the climate risks this region faces today.
Among the speakers will be Sacramento City Historian Marcia Eymann who will survey the past floods starting in 1850. Geomorphologist Rene Leclerc will describe the hydrology of the Sacramento River Valley before the construction of dams and levees. And meteorologist Larry Schick will consider the implications of the 1861-62 deluge for assessing the current flood potential.
The conference relies in part on the historic work of Leon Hunsaker and Claude Curran, whose 2005 study Lake Sacramento -- Can It Happen Again? is an authoritative estimate of the extreme temperature, rainfall and snowfall conditions that produced the worst floods in recorded history.
Hunsaker, who worked as a local TV weatherman in the 1960s and 70s, now lives near Grants Pass, Ore. According to a recent profile by Cosmo Garvin in the Sacramento News & Review, the 89-year-old retired meteorologist still watches California's climate and still worries the Central Valley won't be prepared for the next Big One.
What: California Extreme Precipitation Symposium: The 1861-1862 Floods: Informing Decisions 150 Years Later
Where: Freeborn Hall, University of California, Davis
When: June 26, 7:45 am - 4:15 p.m.
Cost: $90 registration (students $45). Walk-in registrations will be accepted -- check or cash preferred.
For more info: website
PHOTO CREDIT: A scene from Jan. 10, 1862 shows flooded K St., looking east from 4th St. Center for Sacramento History
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.