MATCH() function help and/or workaround

I posted this earlier, but then the was getting a vB database error and now can't find it. My apologies if it eventually shows up twice.

I am trying to use the MATCH() function to lookup a time when an instrument reached a certain value. For example, t = 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,...
and value = 1,2,2,3,3,3,4,.... Since my values are in ascending order, I tried using =MATCH(3,array,1) to get the index. The problem is that the data is ascending but has repeat values. Excel will report the last value of 3, rather than the first. In this example t=5 (6th value) rather than t=3 (4th value).

I do not think a VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP would behave this way, but the time values are in a separate array which makes them cumbersome. Any ideas, or alternate functions (nested functions?) that could solve this?

Thanks in advance,

J.

I think I have it. I need to lower the threshold value and add 1 when I index it. To find when it turned to 3 in the above example, I should use =MATCH(2,array,1)+1 to get the first time it became 3. This will work for me, but not sure how some fractional numbers will be rounded off, so may have to add an additional digit.

Thanks, TMS. The exact match doesn't work for me because the data is not continuous like in my (poor) example. I might have values = 1,2,5,5,7,8.

Thanks, TMS. The exact match doesn't work for me because the data is not continuous like in my (poor) example. I might have values = 1,2,5,5,7,8.

Try this ...

=MATCH(A1,F1:N1,--(COUNTIF(F1:N1,A1)=0))