Emb-175 captain reported confusion with ambiguous weather deviation vectors from ATC.

Attributes
ACN	1569171
Time
Date	201808
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZDV.ARTCC
State Reference	CO
Environment
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

Narrative:

We were deviating left of course and given direct fqf when able. When we were about to go to fqf we saw another cell with another behind it but clear to the south so we were told right deviations no more than 10 degrees. So we took the current track and added 10 degrees giving us a heading of 066 deg. ATC said we were more than 10 degrees to the right and told us to hold back 5 degrees left. He told us that the 10 degrees right was from the track to obh that we had never gotten. He told us that direct obh currently was 056 degrees but he limited us to 061 deg.I feel like there was some confusion as to what the 10 degrees deviation was from and he wasn't being helpful or clear with his instructions.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: EMB-175 Captain reported confusion with ambiguous weather deviation vectors from ATC.

Narrative: We were deviating left of course and given direct FQF when able. When we were about to go to FQF we saw another cell with another behind it but clear to the south so we were told right deviations no more than 10 degrees. So we took the current track and added 10 degrees giving us a heading of 066 deg. ATC said we were more than 10 degrees to the right and told us to hold back 5 degrees left. He told us that the 10 degrees right was from the track to OBH that we had never gotten. He told us that direct OBH currently was 056 degrees but he limited us to 061 deg.I feel like there was some confusion as to what the 10 degrees deviation was from and he wasn't being helpful or clear with his instructions.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.