Whaelstrom

New word today:

whaelstrom (noun): an event or series of events that cause a surge of traffic to Twitter, effectively shutting it down, i.e., a maelstrom of tweets that cause a whale storm. Whaelstrom is a portmanteau combining maelstrom and whale storm. For instance, "Why is Twitter down? Oh, the Justin Beiber - Britney Spears duet just caused a whaelstrom."

A maelstrom is a restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs (from the original, "a large, powerful, or violent whirlpool").

A whale storm is a failure across Twitter that produces Fail Whales for a large number of users. It can be caused by high use or by technical issues.