Perhaps I should explain my motivation for the question. Some people worry about dying; I worry about the universe dying. It would be comforting to know with overwhelming probability that this event is a long way off.

This was an attempt to have a topical question. Thankyou to Gil Kalai for editing it to be more suitable for MO. Thankyou to the commenters here and on meta - if the question is reopened then perhaps those comments could be collated into an answer.

I am far from in this field, but I did some searches due to this discussion, and In principle one can definitely say something on modelling hurricanes from a math point of view; there are recent papers on modelling hurricane movement in math journals.

Gil: I think it's somewhat disrespectful to the OP to modify their question without their feedback. We all have different boundaries though, so I won't look at this question or thread again.

For me, the decisive reason not to delete is that some high-reputation users want it open. There are currently three votes to reopen, which may or may not include Gil. Personally, I don't want it open, at least in its current form. But I think it's wrong to delete it, as a matter of respect for other people's opinions — even if I don't happen to share them.

I don't see the point of deleting it.

Ryan wrote:

I don't see a point in keeping such generalized questions about.

So apparently the difference between our opinions, Ryan, is that for me the default position is not to delete. Thus, in my view, one needs a positive reason for deleting rather than closing. I regard deletion as reserved for spam, obvious homework, and a few other special cases.

(For what it's worth, I did think the question deserved to be closed.)

My reasoning: By a significant modification the question had been in effect turned into Gil Kalai's question rather than the OP's so it's not clear to me that anyone is really invested in the thread. I don't see a point in keeping such generalized questions about, where nobody actually cares about an answer. I mean, the question seemed to be persisting on some kind of abstract idea of the possible utility of it, rather than any actual interest or merits of the question. Rather than talking about whether or not it should be deleted, somebody who cares should craft a good question instead, and start a thread of their own.

Why don't you reveal who you are?

We discussed this already n+1 times. The short answer is because I consider it most of the time, and in particular in such case, as irrelevant who I or anyone else here "is." MO is MO, and beyond contribution to the site I would consider it as better if people would not think so much who somebody "is" or more particularly who they themselves "are"; in particular, when it is about general procedural questions.

IMO it is completely inappropriate for an anonymous poster to accuse three 10K members of abusing their powers.

First, it could (when I wrote it) also have been the OP. And I would consider this too as an abuse of their deletion powers, though slightly less so.

Second, I did not "accuse" anybody of anything. I said: "I consider this basically as an abuse of deleting-powers." That is I stated my opinion on this matter, and with the "basically" the possibility that it was an oversight was acknowledged. And, if it was not an oversight then in my opinion it is an abuse of deletion-powers to delete a question that could not so unlikely have been reopened. This is, I think by general agreement, not how the site is supposed to work (and something like a year ago there was a discussion on this). And I assume a 10k user will know this. So if they knowingly did this, then they used their powers in a way that is not in line with the community standards. So IMO this is an abuse of the powers given to them by the community in the first place.

Third, it is slightly ironic to bring up anonymity specifically related to deletion as in almost all case it happens in such a way that there is no visibility/accounatability of which user did what beyond a small group.

I don't see the point of deleting it.

And I am against guessing intention too much; there is also a value in MO questions generally being taken as written; as opposed to math.SE, sometimes at least, where just recently I observed somebody asking on a conjecture on difference between primes (also) there, and instantly somebody commented "did you mean sum?" because like Goldbach is more well-known or so I guess. And, even on MO it can happen and cause problems that people interpret questions too freely. Just yesterday I think somebody asks for a reference, and gets a proof as a reply. This can be just as good or even better. But in this case OP was unhappy about this because they actually wanted just a classical quotable reference.

@Willie

At the time of my first comment, I thought the OP had put similarly little effort and was just cherry-picking. More explanation on my part would have been better, I agree...

Will someone help me to flesh out this question for posting on MO?

Reasons for it to be closed:

1. The question (see quid's first post in this thread) itself can use some clarification, especially in regards to which kinds of answer the questioner expects and what kinds of background the questioner already has.
2. The one sentence question with minimum research effort shown really smells like a "tell me about X" question that we explicitly discourage in our "How to Ask" page.

Reason for it to be open:

1. I am a bit of a softie when it comes to applications of PDE questions.
2. A proper answer to this question (something expanded and along the lines of what DavidRoberts wrote in this thread or what Scott Carnahan wrote in his comment) would help dispel the misconception that the answer to one of the Clay problems will have direct applications to weather prediction. To a large extent this misconception can be blamed on the researchers in the field (PDE in general and fluids in particular): when writing grant applications or talking to reporters it is hard to resist bringing in the "bigger picture" when talking about applications of the mathematics. (It is not just mathematics, we see this in all basic research: there are times when it is appropriate to lie a little in an elevator pitch to sell one's research.) So it would be somewhat appropriate for the field to clean up the mess that it made in the first place. (Of course, MO is not necessarily the best platform for this.)

Which is why I didn't vote one way or another.

That said: @DavidRoberts: I wish you had included your justification in your first comment. Clearly the OP does not have "a modicum of experience in applied mathematics" and I feel that it is always better to explain than to be dismissive.

That the answer to the question as asked is 'Uh ... no', for the trivial reasons in the previous paragraph, hints to me that the question is not a good question. I also agree with Yemon's comment about 'Can Famous Thing Do X?' questions.

If the questioner had asked about what sort of PDEs or analysis or techniques lie behind the modelling of complex weather systems, such as hurricanes, then I would have thought the question quite on topic. But that was not the question asked.

PS I can't remember which reason for closing I chose, but I agree now with quid that 'Not a real question' seems better than 'Off-topic'.

(More to atmospheric modelling than Clay Millionses, from my limited understanding)

It seems like a complete waste of effort to me to have the "question" you envision.

Nice try, but not really on-topic

And then closed as off-topic. Because this creates responses like:

Why off-topic ? I vote to reopen. Many mathematicians work on prediction of weather.

In my opinion this is "not a real question". The point being that there is not even enough information to really decide what is actually asked, so it is not even off-topic. The issue this creates is that then people will start interpreting it as they like. And demonstrably (and preidictably!) not all come to your and the closers conclusion that this is off-topic.

However, it is really not my intention to criticise those that voted to close for not giving more of an explantion, as the question itself is so lazy. And, for sure, these precise 'official' reasons are anyway often a bit random.

In my opinion in its current form it is completely unsuitable as an MO question; but some modifications seem more reasonable, so please those in particular OP that want this question, perhaps you could at least modify/clarify it a bit.

First, I am not completely happy with the way of closing, but I can see why this happened like this (since with a link to a comic as its only reference, its timing, and its general form it does not come of as serious question even), since at least to me the closing reason misses the point a bit, or at least it can be understood that way.

Second, my problem with the question is that it is extremely lazzy to the extent of being actively harmful to the success. To say something specific, what is the precise role "Navier--Stokes equation" plays in this question. Some scenarios:

1. OP actually wants to know only about Navier--Stokes.

2. OP would in fact also be interested in answers involving any PDE and Navier--Stokes was just an example that came to mind.

3. OP would in fact also be interested in answers involving any type of (advanced) maths.

Moreover, it is all but hard to find something on this on the web; a minimal amount of preparation and to at least make clear what the actual goal of this question is seems more than desireable.