As I write this Thursday night, Hurricane Matthew is approaching the east coast of Florida. By the time this post goes live, Matthew will have just made landfall (or made its closet approach to the Florida coast). Hundreds have been killed in Haiti, according to officials there, and I haven’t heard of any updates from Cuba or the Bahamas, both of which were hit fairly hard.

But even as the immediate concerns for Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are the primary focus, there’s another though in the mind of meteorologists: a second round.

National Hurricane Center forecast graphic for Hurricane Matthew.

If the forecast holds and Matthew loops back around to strike the Bahamas and Florida again, it could exacerbate already devastating damage. It is expected to weaken, so the threat will be more for rain than wind, but with existing widespread damage, it could be significant.

Such an event is not unprecedented, but it is rare. Eduoard and Kyle, both in 2002, did loops over open water, but did not strike the same area twice. Hurricane Esther struck Cape Cod twice in 1961.

From what I’ve been able to find, it looks like 1994’s Hurricane Gordon is the closest analog, but it’s not great. Gordon snaked through the Florida Straights and moved onshore near Fort Myers. The second landfall was near the location of the “seafall” on the Atlantic coast. Gordon’s peak strength was a low-end category 1, not the category 3 or 4 that Matthew will be at landfall (or closest approach).

Matthew is already making its place in history as the strongest storm on record to impact the northeastern Florida coast. Next week, we’ll find out how much gets tacked on.