Pilot flying through storm: "Pretty much every one on the plane threw up"

High winds and driving rain are causing thousands of flight cancellations at East Coast airports. But what about the planes that did manage to take off?

One pilot who landed at Dulles Airport reported it was not a pretty scene.

"Very bumpy on descent," the pilot said, according to a transcript on aviationweather.gov. "Pretty much every one on the plane threw up. Pilots were on the verge of throwing up."

The Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority on Friday said that a brief half-hour ground stop took place at Dulles when wind gusts reached a critical point. 

The Washington Post reported that winds in the D.C. area reached 70-mph gusts.  

Flightaware.com was reporting more than 2,000 cancellations late Friday morning.

An American Airlines spokesman says the company has canceled about 18 percent of its flights in the Northeast, with Boston's Logan Airport and Reagan Washington National Airport the hardest hit.

Delta, Southwest, JetBlue and American were allowing travelers to change their Friday and Saturday flights to avoid delays and cancellations.