No one knows what 2012 will bring, but Twitter users were sure excited to welcome it this past weekend. When midnight hit, the tweets erupted, more than doubling last year’s tweets-per-second record and bringing in the new year with gusto.

As the Daily Mail reports, Twitter users were so eager to tweet their well-wishes for the new year that they caused an hour-long blackout.

This year’s tweet celebration saw a new New Year’s record of 16,197 tweets-per-second. This was more than double last year’s record of 6,939, and is the second highest record ever on the network – just behind the television screening of an anime movie in Japan.

And it was Twitter’s Japanese users who helped set this New Year’s record, too.

At midnight Japanese time on January 1st, Twitter saw such a huge volume of tweets that the site went down for over an hour. And even after it was brought back up, users reported intermittent blackouts for the remainder of the day, with some speculating that it was the result of midnight hitting at various locations around the world.

Hashtags like #HappyNewYear and #2012 took over the network as the ball dropped, and users flooded the network with their best wishes, predictions, resolutions and thoughts on ringing in the new year.

2011 saw dozens of major events that set – and broke – the tweets-per-second record, with New Year’s being just one of them. If nothing else, you can expect 2012 to be the Year of Twitter, as the network becomes the go-to-place to discuss current events and celebrations.

(Top image: R. Gino Santa Maria via Shutterstock)