If you have time, could you perhaps work on extracting some data from a
web site relevant to our Mexico project?  The data are at:

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/pacs/html_files/inventory.html

On this site, go to P01 Salina Cruz and over to 2004 Feb.  There are 38
soundings, P0102021 etc.  Open up a file to show the data, e.g.,

SALINA CRUZ - Mx FEBRERO-02-2004 Hora:07:00 DESPEJAD (W=3.780 m/s)
 t[s]     zt[m]     zm[m]      x[m]      y[m]    dir[o]  mag[m/s]
U[m/s] V[m/s]
  1.0     226.8     234.8      -2.5    -159.9    358.10     1.465
0.049    -1.464
  1.5     340.2     348.2       4.4    -131.7    201.15     2.113
0.762     
... {I only pasted a few data lines.}

The data give the wind profile by tracking a balloon with a special
telescope, a theodolite.  The technique, very old, works in clear air.
(At night a small light is attached to the balloon.) 

I have attached a spreadsheet where I imported the first file (less the
first line of valuable documentation) and plotted zt[meters} versus wind
speed (mag[m/s]) and direction (dir[o]). 

Could you import these into Matlab, saving the documentation
information?  The perhaps generate plots of the profiles?  Contour plots
of height on the y-axis, time (days) on the x-axis with speed and
direction or U and V (east-west; north-south wind components) would be
helpful.  I am not sure if the time in hours is local or UTC.  UTC is
the most common in meteorology, but I will check.


>Import into Excel

>Import into Matlab
-->header by date
-->data by date

>save processed data

>generate contour plots
-->y-axis=height
-->x-axis=time
-->z-axis=speed & direction / U & V