Abstract Generalized impedance boundary conditions are employed to simulate the effect of the earth’s surface on electromagnetic fields. The Sommerfeld type integrals contained in the electromagnetic fields of a horizontal electric dipole over the ground plane are expressed as a rapidly and absolutely convergent expansion of spherical wave functions; and the coefficients of the series are cast into the Legendre functions with argument for the complex surface impedance of the ground with the help of the techniques of the transformation of integration path and the hypergeometric functions. The obtained results have explicit mathematical and physical interpretation and can conveniently be used to calculate the fields. The technique described here is an accurate and efficient computation for the Sommerfeld type integrals.