Fred then turned to the west-northwest, enduring increasingly hostile wind shear, but maintained its status as a tropical cyclone despite repeated forecasts of rapid dissipation.

Across the northernmost islands, rainstorms flooded homes, washed out roads, and ruined farmland; São Nicolau endured great losses of crops and livestock.

Swells from the hurricane produced violent seas along the West African shoreline, destroying fishing villages and submerging swaths of residential areas in Senegal.

Early on August 28, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) began monitoring an unusually vigorous tropical wave—an elongated area of low air pressure—inland over West Africa.

[5] Strong thunderstorms thrived overnight and consolidated near a well-defined low-pressure center;[6][7] around midnight August 30, satellite images and scatterometer data confirmed that a tropical depression with sustained winds of 35 mph (55 km/h) had formed about 300 miles (480 km) west-northwest of Conakry.

[10] A steady trend of intensification ensued while Fred moved through a region with ample tropical moisture, light upper winds, and above-average sea surface temperatures.

[nb 2][15] A compact cyclone, Fred quickly reached its peak strength as a hurricane, with a minimum central pressure of 986 mbar (hPa; 29.12 inHg) and 85 mph (140 km/h) winds.

[17][18] On September 1, drier air and stronger wind shear aloft dispersed the convection around the cyclone's core, causing Fred to diminish to a tropical storm.

Despite the adverse environment and the storm's lack of stable convection, Fred maintained a robust spiral of low-level clouds and gales during this period, defying the NHC's repeated forecasts of its dissipation.

[1] Concurrently, a deep-altitude disturbance a few hundred miles east of Bermuda began to erode the southern edge of the high-pressure ridge that Fred had circumnavigated for most of its journey.

[25] It officially lost its status as a tropical cyclone at 18:00 UTC on September 6, degenerating into a surface trough about 1,200 mi (1,950 km) to the southwest of the Azores before merging with the disturbance off Bermuda.

Along the shorelines between Dakar and M'Bour, rough surf devastated entire fishing districts and harbor towns, stranding boats and damaging roads and bridges.

[30] Offshore, waves as high as 23 feet (7 m) capsized a fishing boat with a crew of 19; twelve members were rescued, but the remaining seven disappeared at sea and were presumed dead.

[32] On the morning of August 31, TACV Cabo Verde Airlines suspended its flights from the capital of Praia to Dakar;[33] all operations at the airports of Boa Vista, Sal, and São Vicente were halted when squalls began to spread across the islands.

[39] Despite the losses in crops and livestock in the Barlavento region, the rainfall from Fred had a generally positive effect on the large-scale agriculture of Cape Verde, refilling rivers and reservoirs and irrigating drought-stricken farmland across the Sotavento Islands.

[40][41] Traversing the eastern islands on the afternoon of August 31, Fred brought strong thunderstorms with 60 mph (100 km/h) winds and 3.8 inches (96 mm) of rain to Boa Vista, uprooting trees, damaging roofs and plaster, and knocking out power to most of the population.

[42][43] The southern village of Povoação Velha bore the brunt of the storm; about 70 percent of the houses there experienced some degree of damage, from broken tiles and windows to crumbled walls,[44] with repair costs of CVE$3 million (US$30,000).

[53] In Ribeira Brava, São Nicolau's most populous town, the storm damaged 70 homes, destroyed greenhouses, and leveled a farmhouse, leaving some families homeless and others without a source of income.

[27] Conversely, the rains replenished dried-up water resources; a large reservoir in São Salvador do Mundo was filled to maximum capacity, irrigating adjacent arable lands.