David,

Yes, that vortex thingy :-) is very different from what you were thinking.

As to a drop in the level of seismicity during storms, I don't think that any studies have been done on this. At least none that I've been able to find. It's basically a curiosity of mine and I watch the number of quakes go down during storms on the recenteqs page for California. I haven't tried writing it down though as I'm to busy with other things. But if that is what is happening, then it would lend more credence to Lowell Whitesides theory (he's the seismologist that I was referring to) of electricity being part of the culprit for earthquakes. The storm sucks charges out of the crust. The level of seismicity gets reduced.

Several years ago, there was a show on the discovery channel where a team from the Global geological survey went to investigate lights in the atmosphere that seemed to occur prior to earthquakes in a couple of locations. In one of the locations, they set up some magnetometers and lo and behold, they started getting some increased readings followed shortly by those lights and subsequently a quake several days later. They came up with a theory on what was the source of energy for those lights, but I can't remember what that was either. Wish I could get ahold of that tape to watch again, but I can't even remember the name of the show.

If I come across anything else in this arena, I'll be sure to post it.

Dennis