In this study, the traditional Markov chain method for wind speed modeling is analyzed and two improvements are introduced. New states categorization step and wind speeds simulation step are presented. They both take advantage of the empirical cumulative distribution function of the wind speed time series. Performances of the new method are tested in terms of modeling and short-term forecasting. The results suggest that this method overperforms the traditional one for modeling. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.