Flooded Chinese city received 87 percent of its annual precipitation in 24 hours

Photographs and video footage circulating on the internet on Tuesday captured the harrowing scenes of severe flooding in China's Henan province, and the rainfall statistics further highlight just how out of the ordinary the situation is, even for a region prone to flooding.

The city of Zhengzhou, for instance, received 21.75 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period that ended Tuesday. That figure accounts for 87 percent of the city's average annual precipitation.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.