Accurate estimation of wind speed distribution is critical to the assessment of wind energy potential, the site selection of wind farms, and the operations management of wind power conversion systems. This paper proposes a new approach for deriving more reliable and robust wind speed distributions than conventional statistical modeling approach. This approach combines Bayesian model averaging (BMA) and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling methods. The derived BMA probability density function (PDF) of the wind speed is an average of the model PDFs included in the model space weighted by their posterior probabilities over the sample data. MCMC method provides an effective way for numerically computing marginal likelihoods, which are essential for obtaining the posterior model probabilities. The approach is applied to multiple sites with high wind power potential in North Dakota. The wind speed data at these sites are the mean hourly wind speeds collected over two years. It is demonstrated that indeed none of the conventional statistical models such as Weibull distribution are universally plausible for all the sites. However, the BMA approach can provide comparative reliability and robustness in describing the long-term wind speed distributions for all sites, while making the traditional model comparison based on goodness-of-fit statistics unnecessary. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.