National Weather Service meteorologist "Skip" Ely said the dry pattern is caused by a persistent area of high pressure that has dominated North Texas weather since the end of June, blocking normal moisture flows across the South.
He forecast a cold, frosty and mainly dry night in Britain and warned that the system of low pressure was likely to wreak more havoc in Germany and Poland overnight.
Even that would involve filling the hull up to the lower deck with electrolyte and, to balance the pressure, probably flooding the bottom part of the dry dock with Thames water.