In this paper, we test the effect of different weather shocks on urban social disorder, for a panel of large cities in developing countries. We focus on a particular mechanism, namely the displacement of population into (large) cities. In line with previous literature, we find that rainfall anomalies affect the rate of urbanisation and city growth in developing countries. However, we also identify diverse effects across different world regions; in Sub-Saharan Africa, lower than expected rainfall is associated with faster growth of large cities. In Asia, on the other hand, higher than expected rainfall leads to higher growth of (large) cities. We explain this latter (novel) finding with respect to the effects of flooding in Asia. We test this hypothesis explicitly using a novel dataset on floods – distinguishing those that affected large cities directly from those that occurred outside of our sample of large cities. Floods are therefore associated with faster growth of the population in the city, and in turn with a higher likelihood (and frequency) of urban social disorder events. Our evidence suggests that the effects of floods on urban social disorder occur (mainly) through the displacement of population, and the “push” of people into large cities. Our findings have important implications for evaluating future climate change, as well as for policies regarding adaptation to climate change and disaster resilience.