Over the next few days, the system gradually developed further, before it was classified as a tropical cyclone and named Lola by the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) on 22 October.

With convective rain bands wrapping into the circulation, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) assessed Lola as having one-minute sustained winds of 215 km/h (130 mph).

On 19 October, the Fiji Meteorological Service reported that Tropical Disturbance 01F had developed out of an area of low pressure, about 1295 km (805 mi) to the northeast of Honiara in the Solomon Islands.

[1][3] Over the next couple of days, the system gradually developed further as it moved south-westwards towards the Santa Cruz Islands, before it was classified as a tropical depression by the FMS on 21 October.

[9][10] Lola intensified into a Category 2 tropical cyclone twelve hours later, as fragmented banding that was wrapping broadly into the slowly consolidating central dense overcast (CDO).

[13] By early on 23 October, Lola had intensified into a Category 3 tropical cyclone, while the system's depiction showed that tightly wrapped convective banding was circulating around a ragged eye.

[16] At around the same time, the FMS estimated that Lola had peaked with 10-minute sustained winds of 215 km/h (130 mph), which made it a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone.

[28] On 23 October, the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office (VNDMO) issued a yellow alert—indicating the threat of a tropical cyclone within 12 hours—for Penama and Sanma.

[32] Due to a communications breakdown on the islands, those reports were limited, but local officials told that homes, schools, and crops had been devastated by the central provinces of Penama and Malampa.

[36] The remnants of Cyclone Lola merged with a low-pressure system in the Tasman Sea before impacting northern areas of New Zealand on 30 October.