Guess where I am! Insofar as you care at all about my whereabouts, or have given any thought to the geographic origins of Weather Eye, you might think of me as being in Germany, or perhaps loitering without intent in the vicinity of Dublin.
But no! I am in Florida, or to be more precise, that is where I hope to be as you read your Irish Times this morning.
I will be in Florida to observe the launch of GOES-L from Cape Canaveral. GOES-L is the latest in a series called Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the use of meteorologists around the world.
Since these spacecraft do not last for ever, replacements are required from time to time and this latest, GOES-L, is scheduled for launch at 7 a.m. tomorrow, Irish time.
Let me tell you about Florida. In the early 1500s, a Spanish grandee with the unfortunate name of Ponce de Leon was exploring the New World when he found a pleasant spot to land on Easter Sunday. He remembered that at home that day was Pascua Florida, the Feast of Flowers, and so he called his latest acquisition Florida.
Because if its latitude, Florida enjoys an almost tropical regime, lying in wintertime under the influence of prevailing mild westerlies from the Gulf of Mexico, and in summer being subject to the balmy easterly trades that blow across the Caribbean.
In either case its climate has an oceanic character, and in summertime the maritime influence protects it from the extremes of temperature common further north; it gets hot enough in summertime, but the average daily maximum is still only about 30 C - the equivalent, perhaps, of the hottest day of the year in Ireland.
Surprisingly, however, the monthly rainfall of 175mm, typical for Florida in late spring and early summer, is higher than anywhere in Ireland and more than three times the average for Dublin.
The reason is that there are more thunderstorms in Florida than in any other State in the US; they occur on average on over 90 days per year, with the cloud building up during the late morning to give a downpour in the afternoon.
Another result, again surprisingly, is that Florida in summer has less sunshine than, say, New York, because the thunderclouds obscure the sun so often in the afternoon.
And, of course, the other major feature of the area is its vulnerability to hurricanes. These, luckily, are very seasonal and do not pose a threat until the summer has matured. The odd tornado, I suspect, is the worst I have to fear.