Narrative:

Very intense and busy end of flight and difficult dealings with denver approach led to late change in altimeter setting to local from standard. Heavy thunderstorms moving slowly with hail reported over dia caused us to hold at frogs intersection after a reroute north and west of original route to avoid weather. First alternate of cys also had a large thunderstorm next to field and then ran out of gas for refueling. 2nd alternate of cos had a large developing thunderstorm just north of field. We decided cos was best option and diverted there. Enroute to cos from hold the thunderstorm north of cos was in our way so we asked to deviate west. Originally that was approved then we were given vectors around traffic to the east. We were handed of to the second denver approach controller who only added to the cockpit workload and stress. We asked him what they were landing in cos and he replied he had no idea he was denver approach not springs. He then gave us a descent and a heading of 130 degrees which was right into the large thunderstorm cell. I told him we couldn't accept that due to the weather and he said that was the only way to get into cos. With the hail reported I wasn't going to fly right into or next to the large cell. He said something to the effect of then we need another plan. I don't know what that meant. I told him I wasn't going to fly that heading. He said to turn left than to 060 and climb to FL210. I told him if we did that we would be minimum fuel. Again he said we need to come up with another plan. He asked if we wanted to go to dia that they were landing runway 8 now. At the same time the first officer was on the radio with cos tower and heard that there was heavy rain and hail on final. We then decided to go to dia and land. All this caused us to delay the approach descent checklist until downwind where we discovered we had to change to the local altimeter.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier Captain reported difficulties communicating with ATC when his destination and alternate airports were impacted by thunderstorms and hail. The distractions resulted in considerable time below FL180 with the altimeters still set to QNE.

Narrative: Very intense and busy end of flight and difficult dealings with Denver Approach led to late change in altimeter setting to local from standard. Heavy thunderstorms moving slowly with hail reported over DIA caused us to hold at FROGS Intersection after a reroute north and west of original route to avoid weather. First alternate of CYS also had a large thunderstorm next to field and then ran out of gas for refueling. 2nd alternate of COS had a large developing thunderstorm just north of field. We decided COS was best option and diverted there. Enroute to COS from hold the thunderstorm north of COS was in our way so we asked to deviate west. Originally that was approved then we were given vectors around traffic to the east. We were handed of to the second Denver approach controller who only added to the cockpit workload and stress. We asked him what they were landing in COS and he replied he had no idea he was Denver Approach not Springs. He then gave us a descent and a heading of 130 degrees which was right into the large thunderstorm cell. I told him we couldn't accept that due to the weather and he said that was the only way to get into COS. With the hail reported I wasn't going to fly right into or next to the large cell. He said something to the effect of then we need another plan. I don't know what that meant. I told him I wasn't going to fly that heading. He said to turn left than to 060 and climb to FL210. I told him if we did that we would be minimum fuel. Again he said we need to come up with another plan. He asked if we wanted to go to DIA that they were landing Runway 8 now. At the same time the First Officer was on the radio with COS tower and heard that there was heavy rain and hail on final. We then decided to go to DIA and land. All this caused us to delay the approach descent checklist until downwind where we discovered we had to change to the local altimeter.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.