Abstract The microseismic motion, ambient ground vibration caused by ocean waves, affects ground-based gravitational wave detectors. In this study, characteristics of the ocean waves including seasonal variations and correlation coefficients were investigated for the significant wave heights at 13 coasts in Japan. The relationship between the ocean waves and the microseismic motion at the KAGRA site was also evaluated. As a result, it almost succeeded in explaining the microseismic motion at the KAGRA site by the principal components of the ocean wave data. One possible application of this study is microseismic forecasting, an example of which is also presented