Wind is one kind of clean and free renewable energy sources. Wind speed plays a pivotal role in the wind power output. However, due to the random and unstable nature of the wind, accurate prediction of wind speed is a particularly challenging task. This paper presents a novel neural fuzzy method for the hourly wind speed prediction. Firstly, a neural structure is proposed for the functional-type single-input-rule-modules (FSIRMs) connected fuzzy inference system (FIS) to combine the merits of both the FSIRMs connected FIS and the neural network. Then, in order to achieve both the smallest training errors and the smallest parameters, a least square method based parameter leing algorithm is presented for the proposed FSIRMs connected neural fuzzy system (FSIRMNFS). Further, the proposed FSIRMNFS and its parameter leing algorithm are applied to the hourly wind speed prediction. Experiments and comparisons are also made to show the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach. Experimental results verified that our study has presented an effective approach for the hourly wind speed prediction. The proposed approach can also be used for the prediction of wind direction, wind power and some other prediction applications in the research field of renewable energy.