A ground electrode subjected to lightning surge current shows the transient impedance behaviors. The ground electrode for protection against lightning should be evaluated in view of the transient grounding impedance and conventional grounding impedance, not ground resistance. The transient impedance characteristics of ground electrodes are influenced by the shape of ground electrode and the soil characteristics, as well as the waveform of lightning surge current. In order to propose a simulation method of analyzing the transient impedance characteristics of the grounding system in practical use, this paper suggests a theoretical analysis method of distributed parameter circuit model to simulate the transient impedance characteristics of counterpoise subjected to lightning surge current. EMTP and Matlab programs were employed to compute the transient grounding impedances of three counterpoises with different lengths. As a consequence, the simulated results using the proposed distributed parameter circuit model are in good agreement with the measured results.