'Sharknado 2' chomped on by viewers

You knew Sharknado 2 would be a hit on social media. But it also scored impressive ratings on Syfy: An average of 3.9 million viewers tuned in Wednesday night, up from 1.4 million for the first airing of the original Sharknado on July 11, 2013.

The total marked the cable network's most-watched original movie (though it's done better with series and miniseries). And the 1.6 million young adults who tuned in outnumbered shows such as CBS' Extant and Fox's So You Think You Can Dance.

But the Twitter storm was its most impressive total: 531,000 tweets about the film were sent Wednesday night, up from 318,000 for last summer's initial run. And Syfy labeled it "the most social movie on TV ever," claiming 1 billion "impressions," though Nielsen -- which measures such things -- says a more reasonable 5.5 million saw one or more tweets related to the movie.

If you missed the mayhem, fear not: Sharknado 2 will be repeated, again and again, starting Saturday (7 p.m. ET/PT) and Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT). And the network months ago greenlit Sharknado 3, presumably attacking next summer.