The origins of Hurricane Betsy can be traced back to an area of disturbed weather southwest of Cape Verde that first identified via TIROS satellite imagery on August 23. Tracking westward, the tropical wave was intercepted by a United States Navy reconnaissance airplane early on August 27, which concluded that the disturbance had become a tropical cyclone of moderate intensity. Based on information from the flight, it was estimated that the system had organized into a tropical depression by 0000 UTC on August 27, east-southeast of Barbados. Although operationally the United States Weather Bureau office in San Juan, Puerto Rico upgraded the disturbance to tropical storm intensity three hours after their first tropical cyclone bulletin that same day, post-analysis indicated that the tropical depression had remained at the same intensity up until 1200 UTC on August 29. Nonetheless, the tropical cyclone was given the name Betsy for a period of time as a tropical depression, contrary to typical tropical cyclone naming procedure. As Betsy approached the Windward Islands, it began to move in a more northwesterly direction, and was briefly located in the Caribbean Sea during the overnight hours of August 28 before re-emerging into the Atlantic Ocean the following day, after which Betsy was upgraded to tropical storm classification in post-analysis.