Annual 'King Tide' hits West Coast, but no major flooding reported

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. West Coast faced its highest tides of the year on Monday but there were no reports of significant flooding, after a weekend that saw rising tides combine with high waves to cause minor inundations in parts of California, meteorologists said. The King Tide phenomenon is associated with the winter solstice that occurred on Sunday, when the resulting alignment of the sun, moon and Earth causes tides to rise to their highest level of the year, Carol Smith of the National Weather Service said. At Los Angeles-area shores, Monday morning's tide rose to 6.72 feet above the mean sea level, Smith said. But there were no reports of significant flooding in the area, she said. At the shore in Mill Valley in northern California, high tides on Sunday flooded part of a highway exit and a parking lot, according to local television station KGO. In the Pismo Beach area of central California, piers were closed due to high surf and rising tides over the weekend, and there was some minor flooding near a trailer park because a creek could not empty into the rising ocean, Smith said. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Eric Walsh)