Speaking only as a helicopter pilot previously expected to fly in them for SAR purposes, I would say avoid them whenever possible!
For a helicopter it can be very interesting. I once was unable to get my aircraft (a 5 tonner) to land at all for a period of about two minutes. It stubbornly remained in the hover (in autorotation) as I tried to land on an upslope to rescue some soldiers stranded on a small island off HKG.
Another time we had to land inside a fenced basketball pitch to pick up a heart attack victim. We had 75 knots IAS in the hover at around 70 feet agl, this rapidly reduced to almost zero once inside the basketball pitch. Some very large control inputs were needed to avoid the fence and keep the sunny side up; the turbulence being quite interesting. Unfortunately the patient was already beyond help.
It can be difficult to winch in such strong winds due to the fact that even in the hover the poor winchman gets blown rearwards towards the tail rotor.....
In 1997 (with bated breath) I watched and listened to airliners still attempt to arrive at night at Kai Tak with a 90 kt crosswind; one in particular making three attempts on RW13 followed by 2 attempts on RW31 before diverting. The eye of the storm passed by less than half a mile away that night so the runway changed. The ILS initially failed on 31, resulting in some very interesting R/T conversations, especially involving this same aircraft, the crew of which didn't understand what a PAR was and finally diverted rather than accept that type of approach.