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ABSTRACT: The damage and loss of life from fresh water flooding as Tropical Cyclones move inland and towards higher latitudes rivals the losses at the point of landfall. This makes it extremely important to understand the structure of these systems as some such events produce much less damaging rainfall. Extreme rainfall and major flooding events are studied around the Globe to examine the likely structure of weather systems which produce extreme rainfall. An extensive search for rare radio-sonde data has been carried out near where extreme rainfall and flooding has been reported. In almost every case atmospheric moisture content is high and the low-level wind direction turns anti-cyclonically with increasing height up to 500 hPa. The rare exception to the rule is when tropical thunderstorms generate extreme rainfall. This study extends previous work in Eastern Australia by showing that the link between turning winds and rainfall exists in both the tropics and temperate zones, and the link applies in cases of extreme rainfall and associated major flooding. Keywords: floods, fatalities, upper winds