Hurricane Fifi originated from a tropical wave that moved off the west coast of Africa on September 8. As the storm entered the Atlantic, satellite imagery showed that the system was already well-developed. Traveling westward, the wave entered the Caribbean Sea by September 13. Soon after emerging into the Caribbean, convective activity quickly increased. The following day, a US Navy reconnaissance aircraft flew into the system and found a developing low-level circulation. Operationally, the system was not declared a tropical depression by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) until late on September 15; however, in the Atlantic hurricane database, it was determined that it had become a tropical depression during the afternoon of September 14. The NHC initially forecast the depression to continue its west-northwest track, eventually brushing Cuba, although the storm never took the northerly turn.