AbstractFive aspects of the hydrology of one‐day annual minimum flowsQIM, have been studied using data from twelve catchments in Malawi. Results indicate that the log‐normal distribution can be fitted to all twelve catchments. Four of the rivers studied are intermittent. Application of statistical methods developed in meterology to the dichotomous‐transformed data of these catchments revealed that two are ‘flow‐dominant’ and the other two are ‘dry‐dominant’. Another catchment is entirely dominated by a hydraulic gradient towards the Shire River and Elphant Marsh and so dries up every dry season for considerable periods of time despite the relatively high rainfall in the catchment.QIM, t‐days after the date of occurrence ofQIM(May), can be better estimated from simple regression than from an empirically determined