A hailstorm is a meteorological event, being a storm in which a large amount of hail falls. In the northern hemisphere, they generally occur between May and August, during the afternoon. Hailstorms, depending on the size of the hailstones, can cause tremendous amounts of property damage; causing losses of crops, injuring livestock as well as people, and causing significant damage to automobiles. Often car dealerships, faced with an entire inventory of cars suffering body damage after a hailstorm, are forced to sell them at drasticly reduced prices. Hailstorms were the seventh plague visited upon the Egyptians (Exodus 9.13-35).