I think there are many categories of storm, each with their own characteristics and risks. What level of maturity the cell(s) have, the environmental lapse rate, humidity, depth, etc. The effects range from benign to lethal.
If you can actually see what’s going on and combine that with the radar picture, it is possible to manage the risk but it takes a lot of experience, knowledge and readiness to throw it away if you don’t like it. As per the previous poster, a storm over/proximate to the airfield is generally worth holding off for. On my type a lightning strike needs ~6 engineer hours of checking before it returns to service, so waiting 20mins for the storm to dissipate is cheap insurance...