 The first official system of the season was the strongest, deadliest, and most damaging system of the season

During January 14, the JTWC started to monitor an area of convection that had developed within the near equatorial trough of low pressure, about 900 km (560 mi) to the southeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka.Over the next couple of days the disturbance moved towards the northwest under the subtropical ridge of pressure, before early on January 17, the JTWC noticed a steady increase in deep convection and issued a tropical cyclone formation alert.Later that day the JTWC initiated advisories as the disturbance had intensified into a tropical storm and designated it as Cyclone 01A.