A spectral analysis of two balloon soundings of temperature performed in the troposphere and lower stratosphere over the Andes Mountains in Argentina with a vertical resolution of 10 m has been performed. The first and second soundings, launched at the same location, were performed during unusually calm and disturbed atmospheric conditions respectively. Considerable deviations from the -3 value predicted for the spectral slopes in the power-law range by current saturation theories are found. These departures are reduced if the data resolution at disposal is diminished, thereby eliminating the highest wavelength harmonics. Slopes do not clearly steepen with increasing height as suggested by other authors and topography seems to be responsible for this fact at low altitudes. The spectral amplitude increase with height detected from recent lidar data is corroborated only in the sounding with calm atmospheric conditions. Spectra are found to scale with the buoyancy frequency not as simply as suggested by the saturation models.¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union