Extreme climatic events are the most ecologically prominent implication of global climate change. Consequently, there is a pressing societal need to forecast their ecological effects. Such need is justified by effects that will span over food security, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and species’ population viability. In the past decade, countless experiments and exceptional weather events have provided ecologists with a firmer grasp on the nature and ecological implications of climatic extremes. However, these advances do not, by themselves, provide enough knowledge to inform ecological forecasts. This symposium aims to present the most promising avenues of research relevant to forecasting the effects of climatic extremes on populations. We focus on population dynamics because it is the demographic rates of survival, reproduction and migration/dispersal that constitute the center of species’ response to climate (e.g. its resilience, viability, vulnerability, etc.). First, we address theoretical advances in the definition and study of climatic extremes. Second, we show recent empirical results and delineate the challenge of translating ecological understanding into forecasts. Such overview has the objective of outlining a possible research agenda for forecasting extreme climatic events on population dynamics.