Using the method of different scales, formulas for the hydrodynamic fields of acoustic-gravity waves (AGWs) with vertical wavelengths that are small compared to the scales of changes in the background temperature and wind fields are derived. These formulas are equivalent to the conventional WKB approximation, but explicitly include the vertical gradients of the background fields. The conditions for the applicability of the formulas for describing the propagation of AGWs from the troposphere to the thermosphere are formulated and analyzed. The absence of singular points (critical levels) in the equations for wave modes in the analyzed height range is one of the conditions for the applicability of approximate formulas. For the wind from the empirical HWM model, singular points are often located below 200 km and are typical for internal gravity waves (IGWs) with lengths on the order of 10 km. As the wavelength increases, the number of singular points decreases. For IGWs with scales on the order of 300 km or more, there are usually no singular points. It is shown that IGWs with periods of less than 20 min propagating upward from tropospheric heights usually have one turning point in the altitude range from 100 to 130 km. The formulas are useful, in particular, for parametrizing the effects of AGWs in numerical models of atmospheric dynamics and energy.