The northern Adriatic Sea is known to be threatened by extreme sea level events. Venice is exposed to these events, locally known as <em>Acqua Alta</em>, which cause the flooding of the historical city centre. Despite its relevance, a comprehensive analysis of extreme <em>Acqua Alta</em> events that considers all possible compounding drivers, including baroclinic contributions, is, to our knowledge, still missing. In this work, numerical results based on the <em>Copernicus Marine Mediterranean Analysis and Forecasting System</em> are analyzed to better understand the physical mechanisms underlying the 12 November 2019 <em>Acqua Alta</em> event and to assess individual processes playing a role in the event dynamics.</p> <p>The novel finding of this study is the identification of the contribution of baroclinic dynamics. We estimate a net baroclinic contribution of 7 cm (4 %) to the 175 cm sea level peak. We show for the first time that internal seiches along the northern Adriatic slope contribute to the dynamics of the <em>Acqua Alta</em> event. Moreover, we identify a northern Adriatic density front and quantify its contribution to the time-mean positive northward sea level slope.