Volatility is exploding today, but even more extreme is the huge pop higher in shorter term maturities.
As markets have been trading boring, more and more "smart" guys have been piling into the "vol neutral arbitrage", i.e selling front month vs buying longer dated options and collecting the theta.
Today, this trade is blowing up massively.
Below the Eurostoxx 50 term structure showing the overall increase in vol as well as the front months shock.