Raining on cities' GDP parades

When I was a little kid, my friends and I enjoyed rainy days and the subsequent water fights immensely; we'd sing the Cantonese nursery rhyme Big Rain while wading through flooded streets on our way home from school. However, such scenes of heavy rain and street flooding are no longer just part of the Lingnan culture in Guangdong province and nearby regions such as Hong Kong and Macao.

Last year torrential rain and floods wreaked havoc in Beijing, claiming more than 70 lives and causing billions of yuan in economic losses.

This year, Wuhan in Central China was hit by rainstorm-triggered floods in July that led to the provincial capital being dubbed the Oriental Venice. Hard on the heels of that, half of Chengdu was inundated by storm water runoff.