Strange Luminous Cloud Appears Over the Salton Sea (Earthquake Warning?)

Last night around 8pm, a strange luminous cloud formation appeared over the Salton Sea (southern CA desert). It was very strange. This is a remote area so there are no city lights that could have caused light to be reflected up into the cloud. It remained visible for quite some time. I tried to take some photos of it but they didn’t turn out that well (see image link below). When I woke up this morning there was a black cloud formation in the exact same area in roughly the same shape/configuration. It’s been extremely windy here the last 15 hours or so.

About a month ago we had a string/swarm of small earthquakes (USGS link below). The grouping of blue squares is only a couple of miles from where I live. Recently it’s been relatively quiet (USGS link below). However, there continues to be a cluster of quakes occurring in the same area around the Salton Sea.

Many fault lines intersect in this area, including the San Andreas fault.

Not sure what this all means, if anything. The luminous cloud formation was very strange. Similar luminous clouds have been observed prior/after large earthquakes. Also strange cloud formations can sometimes be observed around areas/times of large quakes.

Luminous/Black Cloud
[link to www.pbase.com]

USGS Quake Map
[link to www.pbase.com]

Earthquake Lights (from Wikipedia)

Appearance

The lights are reported to appear while an earthquake is occurring, although there are reports of lights before or after earthquakes, such as reports concerning the 1975 Kalapana earthquake. They are reported to have shapes similar to those of the auroras, with a white to bluish hue, but occasionally they have been reported having a wider color spectrum. The luminosity is reported to be visible for several seconds, but has also been reported to last for tens of minutes. Accounts of viewable distance from the epicenter varies, in the 1930 Idu earthquake, lights were reported up to 70 miles from the epicenter. Earthquake lights were reportedly spotted in Tianshui, Gansu, approximately 400 km north-northeast of the earthquake's epicenter. During the 2007 Peru earthquake lights were seen in the skies above the sea and filmed by many people. The phenomenon was also observed and caught on film during the 2009 L'Aquila and the 2010 Chile earthquakes. The phenomenon was also reported around the Aimuri Earthquake in New Zealand, that occurred 1 September 1888. The lights were visible in the morning of 1 September in Reefton, and again on the 8th of September.

Theories

Earthquake lights are caused by an unknown mechanism. There are numerous theories as to how and why they occur.
One explanation involves intense electric fields created piezoelectrically by tectonic movements of rocks containing quartz.

Another possible explanation is local disruption of the Earth's magnetic field and/or ionosphere in the region of tectonic stress, resulting in the observed glow effects either from ionospheric radiative recombination at lower altitudes and greater atmospheric pressure or as aurora. However, the effect is clearly not pronounced or notably observed at all earthquake events and is yet to be directly experimentally verified.

Earthquake cloud

Earthquake clouds are clouds claimed to be signs of imminent earthquakes. They have been described in antiquity: In chapter 32 of his work Brihat Samhita, Indian scholar Varahamihira (505–587) discussed a number of signs warning of earthquakes, including extraordinary clouds occurring a week before the earthquake.[1] In modern times, a few scientists claim to have observed clouds associated with a seismic event, sometimes more than 50 days in advance of the earthquake. Some have even claimed to accurately predict earthquake occurrences by observing clouds.[2] However, these claims have very little support in the scientific community. Research on "Earthquake clouds" is mostly in China and Japan.

An earthquake light is an unusual luminous aerial phenomenon that reportedly appears in the sky at or near areas of tectonic stress, seismic activity, or volcanic eruptions. Once commonly challenged, it was not until photographs were taken during the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in Nagano, Japan (which occurred from 1965 through 1967) that the seismology community acknowledged their occurrence.